Purely Violent Assassins
by GiiTheMetalhead
Summary: After forming an unlikely alliance prior to a fight with Amnesia, Carmine and Orie are swallowed up by darkness. They awaken to find themselves in the Imperial Capital, where they're found by Tatsumi and Night Raid. Reluctantly agreeing to join Night Raid, Carmine and Orie become assassins and work to help bring down the corrupted empire. Told mostly from Carmine and Orie's side.
1. Prologue

Author's Note

Hello there, thanks for taking the time to check out this story I made. This is a story I'm writing for NaNoWriMo 2018 (National Novel Writing Month), so I'm working hard to make a consistent story and clear 50,000+ words by the end of November. This may not be a publishable story since it's a fanfiction, but any feedback, good or bad is appreciated. Also, this story will mostly be told from Carmine and Orie's experiences. For more of the story, I'd highly encourage you all to watch/read Akame Ga Kill. A lot of the beginning is created from Carmine and Orie's Arcade Mode stories apart from interacting with each other. Trust me, it wasn't easy trying to use to complete opposites of characters for this. Anyways, enough from me. Hope you enjoy the story!

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Prologue

The Hollow Night. A phenomenon that appears every full moon. Every Hollow Night, creatures born from darkness known as Voids come to feast on a substance known as the EXS, the form of energy in all earthly matter and the source of all things. Those that possess the EXS are known as "In-Births," beings that are neither living nor dead but possess extraordinary abilities akin to their EXS.

During a Night, some humans wander the streets during the phenomenon, either aware or unaware of the risks of being attacked by a Void. If a person gets bitten by a Void, it will consume the person's soul and infect their body with the Void's common ability to manipulate EXS. Those that withstand the attack and maintain their sanity will reawaken as In-Births. Those that lose their sanity to the attack will lose their consciousness and will be turned into a Void themselves. By reawakening as an In-Birth, one would be able to access the Void's ability of materialization, which allows an In-Birth to give their EXS a unique shape or attribute. The greater the bite given by a Void, the more powerful the ability, however the bigger bite will mean a greater risk of being turned into a Void.

Knowledge of the EXS and the Hollow Night as well as the abilities of an In-Birth had been passed down and been fought over for 1,000 years between different factions. Some of them include the Night Blade, the original possessors and guardians of the EXS courtesy of the Hollow God, the Licht Kreis (also known as "The Light Circle"), a faction created to protect civilians from Voids and unruly In-Births as well as performing crowd control during Nights, and other gang factions that seek to have more freedom to use their powers, such as Amnesia and Bankikai (also known as "The Demon Society"). Some In-Births remain unaffiliated with any faction and prefer to work of their own free will, however conflicts between factions, namely the Night Blade, Licht Kreis and Amnesia, are well-known and can either help or hinder their own actions in the Night.

During a war between opposing sides, the spectators watch in bewilderment and wonder what will happen to either party. Will one side surrender? Will both sides completely destroy each other? Will they call a truce? Even stranger to think about: what would happen if both sides decided to work together despite their differences? Two or more unlikely partners working together towards a common goal in mind does not seem like a plan that would work out well for anyone involved, however, in this Hollow Night, two different people, two different personalities, two different kinds of abilities, will find their fates intertwined and forced to cooperate to work together in their new role in life. Their new roles as assassins working to overthrow a corrupt government. This ideology of two unlikely partners becoming assassins is where our story begins.


	2. Kill The Encounter

Another Hollow Night had arrived in Kanzakai, Japan, "The Nightless City." As the sky grew thick with EXS, In-Births had started to come out to test their powers against more of their kind while others were out hunting down the Voids that would try to feast on the EXS of people and In-Births alike. Knowing that Voids would come out to attack others and the organization known as Amnesia would be out raising havoc as they had a reputation of doing on Nights, some members of the Licht Kreis were dispatched to keep an eye on the stability of the Hollow Night. One member of the Licht Kreis in particular was assigned with the task of infiltrating the headquarters of Amnesia to gain intelligence on the organization and reporting back to the Licht Kreis's Japanese branch.

A woman with blue hair, a rapier and a long, blue dress adorned with the symbol of the Licht Kreis was running through the back streets of Kanzakai, keeping her eyes open for Voids and suspicious activity along the way. This woman was named Orie Ballardiae, Fifth Executor of the Licht Kreis and possessor of the EXS of Purity, "Thanatos." As she ran through back roads and alleys and avoided any main streets, she did her best to avoid being seen out in the open. Some In-Births, especially those who support organizations like Amnesia, wouldn't hesitate to attack a member of the organization meant to suppress the desire and ability to freely use their EXS. She was aware of this risk she took while donning the uniform of a Licht Kreis Executor, however she was proud of her organization and would perform the assignment given to her no matter the risk involved.

Orie took out her cell phone and pulled up the intelligence she was given on the assignment. She scrolled through the notes to the map of Kanzakai she was given. It seemed to be close solely by the amount of EXS radiating from the headquarters and its members, however a map was more conducive to making a strategy and to avoid not being drawn into a conflict. "Two hundred meters to go," she said to herself as she locked the phone and put it back in her dress's pocket. Now was the time to devise a strategy so that she wouldn't make an obvious path to the headquarters without being seen.

She saw a nearby alleyway that rounded a corner into a back road flanked by some abandoned buildings. She decided that was a good place to work from, so she started en route to Amnesia's headquarters. Her feet slowed when she heard some people making a racket around the corner. "Must be a conflict between some homeless people," she sighed with a frown. There never was enough done for the homeless in the world; they had to resort to fighting each other to stay alive.

Her words were quickly thrown back in her face as a man was flung across her line of sight and into a nearby wall, blood splattering from where his head had landed. The man slid down to the ground, still breathing thank God, but badly injured. Orie immediately ran towards the commotion and the injured man. Her first thought was that the man needed to see medical attention, but also what could have caused that injury?

She knelt down towards the man. "Hello? Are you alright? Can you hear me?" she cried. The man's eyes were glazed over and blood was draining from his mouth, the back of his head, and various areas around his body. He slowly nodded his head, still completely dazed from the injury. He haphazardly raised his arm and pointed towards the direction he was thrown from.

Orie looked in the direction the man was pointing at to see what had happened. She saw a man around her age looking at both of them with a combination of ecstasy and anger creeping across his face. The man was wearing blood-red jeans with a chain wallet, a black fur-collared vest and black shoes. However, the most distinguishing features about him were that his eyes were red when they should have been white, the lower halves of his arms were blood-red, and his hair was the same color of blood-red as his eyes and arms.

"Yeah, that's what you get for trying to pick a fight with me, asshole!" the man yelled. "Next time you wanna fight, you better bring your body bag with!" He took a second to cease the insults and notice the woman that had just come to his aid. "Who the hell are you now?" he barked. He then noticed the symbol on her dress. "Ah man," he scoffed. "First I get this jerk-off that thinks he's hot shit because he became an In-Birth and now I have to deal with some asshole from the Licht Kreis? What a drag."

A vein popped into Orie's head. No one is going to beat a man within an inch of his life and get away with insulting the Licht Kreis. Not if she has anything to say about it. "What did this man do to deserve getting beaten up like this?" she demanded while drawing her rapier. "Explain yourself!"

The man rolled his eyes. "I think I made it clear enough already. He became an In-Birth and tried to show off his powers in a fight. I just had to take him down a few pegs so that he knew his place." His eyes narrowed. "So now how about you tell me what the Licht Kreis is doing around a place like this before I beat it out of you?"

Orie stiffened. She shouldn't be explaining the Licht Kreis's plans to outsiders, especially troublesome ones such as the man in front of her. She pointed her rapier at the man. "That is classified to outsiders," said Orie. "All you need to know is the Licht Kreis is around the area to prevent situations like this from happening."

The man cracked his knuckles and smirked. "Not gonna talk, huh? Fine with me. I've been wanting to take one of you down for a while now. But first, what's your name?"

Orie stood there, dumbstruck. She tilted her head in confusion. "M-my name? Why do you need to know my name?"

"I like to know the names of the people I'm gonna beat the shit out of," said her future adversary. "Makes the fights a lot more fun when I can remember who I curbstomped later."

Orie grunted. She shouldn't be giving out her name if it could jeopardize the mission, especially since she didn't know if this man was affiliated with any organization she was against, such as Amnesia. She then decided it wouldn't matter too much when she could beat the man and get some information out of him. "My name is Orie Ballardiae," she said proudly. "Fifth Executor of the Licht Kreis. May I ask what your na-" She stopped. Something seemed oddly familiar about the man standing in front of her. "Apologies for assuming, but I can't help but think that I recognize you from somewhere."

The man raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, he laughed after a second look at her. "Ha! Now I know you!" he cackled. "You're that goody-goody transfer student I go to school with! I thought you acted like a stuck-up pain in the ass because you came from a rich school, if that was even true in the first place. But it makes a lot more sense seeing you as a member of the Licht Kreis!"

Orie was starting to show visible signs of irritation on her face. This man was starting to get under her skin. "You hold your tongue! That's enough insulting our organization you miscreant!" She stopped and got a second look at the man in front of her. She tried to recall a moment in school where she would have seen him. Then it hit her. "Now I recognize you," she said, lowering her rapier. "You go by the name of Carmine Prime, am I correct?"

Carmine nodded. "That's what they call me, yeah," he said. "So now that I know the name I'm going to write on your gravestone, get talking before I start digging your matching grave."

"I'm afraid I'm not going to release any information to outsiders," said Orie, pointing her rapier at Carmine a second time. "Now stand aside. I have a mission to complete and I have wasted enough time here dealing with you." She began to walk past Carmine when all of a sudden a spike of blood whizzed past her head mere inches from piercing her.

"You don't think you're going to just walk away that easily, do you?" said Carmine. "You already pissed me off by being a member of Licht Kreis, but refusing to give me information I want already gave me enough reason to stomp your head into the ground."

Orie was getting frustrated dealing with him. Carmine's attitude and refusal to let her go was making her waste time getting to Amnesia. She had to deal with him quickly. "Alright, then here are the terms of the battle," she said, much to Carmine's annoyance. "If I win, you let me carry on with my mission. If you win, I will tell you the details of my mission and then we part ways."

Carmine smiled. "Sounds good to me," he said. "I can give you the courtesy of negotiating, though it ain't gonna do shit for you in the end."

"One last question," said Orie. "Are you affiliated with Amnesia or any other organization around here that would be opposed to the Licht Kreis?"

"Tch, yeah right." Carmine crossed his arms and frowned at the question. "They piss me off just as much as the Licht Kreis does, especially that Paradox bitch. How weak do you have to be to rely on others to do your dirty work anyways? People working together mean they're weak on their own." Carmine pointed at Orie. "Just like you."

Orie took a stance and got ready for battle. "Then may the best combatant win, Carmine," she said.

"Just don't die before I tell you to," sneered Carmine.


	3. Kill The Alliance

Both stood there, facing each other, ready to strike, reading the other's movements, not daring for a moment to hesitate. All it would take would be one wrong move and the unfortunate combatant to make that movement would lose the battle before it even started. The air grew thick and tense with the EXS built up from the two and not a sound could be heard apart from their breathing.

Both took one step forward. Then another. Then more footsteps came, which came more frequently and forcefully. Eventually the two In-Births broke into a sprint and dashed right at each other. "GO!" they both yelled as they made contact, Orie's rapier and Carmine's blade of blood grinding against each other forcefully, fighting for control.

Three seconds of the deadlock passed and then the two broke from each other. Orie took the initiative and thrust the point of her rapier at Carmine's chest. Carmine swatted the blade away and reached for Orie's neck. She quickly ducked under his reach and sent a roundhouse kick flying towards his head. This move did not miss; Carmine's head went sideways, blood leaking from his mouth. Orie decided to capitalize and tried again to thrust at him with the rapier.

But Carmine's bloody mouth turned into a devilish grin. "Spike!" he yelled. The blood leaking from his mouth quickly turned into crystal shards and shot towards Orie like a bullet. She had no time to react to the move and was shot in the hip with the shard of blood.

Orie winced in pain at the sudden move. "Grh," she grumbled. "I-I see your powers allow you to manipulate blood. A dangerous power indeed."

"Oh man, that kick to the head really stung, but seeing you still able to stand after taking that shot makes you a hell of a lot better to play with than those other chumps," said Carmine. He took another stance. "Let's see what other tricks you can do!"

Carmine quickly closed the distance between the two and began to swipe at Orie with blades of blood. She managed to block his attacks with her rapier, but Carmine was swinging so wildly and randomly that she couldn't sense a pattern with him. She was so fixated on trying to find a pattern to exploit that she didn't see the kick he sent flying at her head. He hit her full force, sending her crashing into some trash cans in the alley.

Carmine sighed and scratched his head. "Jeez, make this fun, will ya? It's no fun beating up people that can't fight back."

Orie was annoyed. "You think this is a game!? Fine, reap what you sow!" She tapped her rapier and increased her EXS. "Thanatos!"

"Eh?" questioned Carmine. Suddenly, he saw a larger shadow standing by his own. Confused, he turned around to find a beige-colored paladin with a giant sword in its hands. Before he even had a chance to process the new party brought into the battle, the paladin known as Thanatos swung its sword horizontally at him. He barely had a chance to block the lethal attack with his bloody shield, however, the impact of the attack sent him flying into a brick wall, cracking it upon impact.

Carmine spat out a bit of blood and smiled. He looked up at Orie and laughed. "Alright, now this is what I call a fight!" yelled the hemomancing In-Birth in glee. "Never seen something like that before!"

Orie narrowed her eyes. "I find it hard to believe that you get this much satisfaction from fighting someone," she scoffed. "To be frank, violence without any justified reason for it means nothing more to me than a child throwing a tantrum. You don't seem to be any different."

Carmine's face darkened at her words. The air around them grew more intense as his mood turned from sadistic to murderous. "You don't know a goddamn thing about my reasons for fighting," he growled. "Nothing gives me more satisfaction than seeing lowlife punks, high-and-mighty assholes, and people that piss me off get what they deserve. And what they deserve is my blood spike turning their worthless bodies into pin cushions!"

Orie was starting to run out of time and energy. Carmine's deranged addiction to fighting was only making him more dangerous to be around. She was trying to think of a way to satiate his bloodlust when all of a sudden she thought of an idea.

Her adversary wasn't having any of it. He kicked her hard, making her clutch her stomach. "Hey, wake up!" spat Carmine. "If you're gonna admit defeat, wait until I finish you!"

"Thanatos!" ordered Orie. The paladin grabbed Carmine by his arms and lifted him in the air. He thrashed about, but to no avail. Orie slapped his face, making his eyes burn with rage.

"You bitch!" roared Carmine. "You better to pray to God that this thing holds me here forever! Because if it can't, I'll have your head before you even get the chance to say you're sorry! You hear that!? I'll make-" His insults were cut short by another slap of her hand.

"Are you done yet?" grunted Orie. Carmine stopped moving and kept his attention on her, though his rage-filled face showed no signs of disappearing. Orie sighed. "Good. I've had enough of this meaningless fight. You were a worthy opponent, Carmine, but I need to carry on with my mission."

"Seriously? That's IT!?" Carmine whined. "Do you see either of us looking defeated? Because I sure as hell don't! Let me go!"

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, then let's call it a draw," said Orie. She took a deep breath. "And since neither of us won, I will let you in on a little bit of what the Licht Kreis is doing in this area and then we will part ways without a second thought."

She pointed towards the direction of Amnesia's headquarters. "I was assigned with the task of infiltrating Amnesia's headquarters and gaining information on their next moves. I do not know the details of what they are planning or when they will bring those plans to fruition, but I will try to find that out tonight." She dissolved Thanatos and Carmine dropped to the ground. "Does the information prove sufficient enough for you?"

Carmine stood up and dusted himself off. "Amnesia, huh?" he said. "Yeah, I've seen those guys. Led by that big shot, Paradox. What a bunch of sorry pieces of shit they are, throwing their powers around like they own the place. Makes me sick."

Orie bowed and sheathed her rapier. "Then I bid you goodnight, Carmine. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be-" She was cut off by Carmine running up and grabbing her collar. "Wh-what are you doing!?" she cried. "I thought we agreed we were done here!"

Carmine's grip on her tightened. "You know, I was gonna let you go because I thought you were gonna go play police force or something," he said with a smile. "But now that I know you're going after Amnesia, looks like I found the perfect time to pay them a visit myself. And you're going to help me get to them."

He let go and dropped her to her knees. She stood back up, her annoyance not leaving her face for a second. "I have no authority to bring a civilian into Licht Kreis affairs," she retorted. "Besides, you have no reason to fight them yourself. What reason do you have for coming with me?"

Carmine chuckled. "Tch, I don't give a shit about finding out about their plans or anything like that. I just feel like beating them up because I don't like them. Nothing more, nothing less." He cracked his knuckles. "I don't care what you're doing. All I want is to get to their headquarters and then we've got nothing else to talk about."

Orie was stunned. On one hand, bringing a civilian into a conflict involving the Licht Kreis could land her in some trouble with Adelheit and Silvaria. On the other hand, Carmine wanted to go for his own reasons and not necessarily to help her. Though he could subconsciously provide a distraction for her so that she could carry out her infiltration without having too many eyes on her. Not the plan she had intended to use on this Night, but the mutual benefit was something that could work nonetheless.

She offered her hand to the red-haired psychopath. "Alright then, for now we call an alliance. But as soon as we reach the headquarters, we part ways." He looked at her hand in disgust and looked away. She retracted her hand while noting that someone really needs to teach Carmine about manners.

"Just stay out of my way and then we've got nothing to worry about," he quipped.

Orie sighed. If Carmine was with her, this was going to be a long night. She had no idea how right she was.


	4. Kill The Infiltration

The two In-Births kept running through the streets, all the while keeping a close eye out for other In-Births or Voids that might hinder their progress. Eventually, Orie's intel led them to a giant park area. "It seems we're roughly 20 meters away from reaching their headquarters," said Orie. She put her cell phone away and took a look in the direction of the HQ. "Now if only there was a clear way of getting in without being seen. Seems unfortunate that a large park doesn't grant us much cover to work with apart from a few trees."

"Bah, you're wasting your time trying to find an easy way in," said Carmine. "Amnesia's got shitloads of punks surrounding the area. You either go through the front door, the back door, or a window."

"I'll think of something." The two of them started to creep up towards the mansion, finding anything they could hide behind without looking suspicious or obvious. They ducked behind a tree and concentrated on the area. "Alright, here's the plan," began Orie as she analyzed the sight for good infiltration spots. "I will take the lead, you-" She turned to find her ally nowhere near her. Suddenly she heard lots of men screaming along with some maniacal laughter.

Orie peeked out from behind the tree to see Carmine beating up five different In-Births from Amnesia near the front gate. As he laid the fifth one out, he looked up at her and smirked. He waved her over as to say "come on already." Orie sighed. "I guess his bloodlust does have its benefits after all," she muttered under her breath.

The two of them made it past the front gate and took a look around. Orie was looking for a different way around, but Carmine insisted they go through the front door. "Don't even bother," he said. "This is the easiest way in."

Orie put her hand to her face and shook her head. "You don't seem to understand the idea of "stealth," do you?" she quipped. "We're trying NOT to make it obvious that we're coming to Amnesia's headquarters! Or at least, I'm not! Besides, didn't you say we were splitting up as soon as we got here?"

Carmine crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Alright, if you can think of a better way in, I'm all ears."

The Licht Kreis Executor was about to suggest something, but she bit back her tongue seeing as how no other entryway was practical enough not to raise eyebrows more than they already are. Carmine, as bloodthirsty and violent as he was, also had a point. Given they would have already been spotted coming into the territory, paired with Carmine already beating up five members of Amnesia, they didn't have many places to go that wouldn't give them people to fight.

She sighed and walked up to the door. She summoned Thanatos and broke the door down. The two made their way inside and looked at each other again. "Thanks again for your assistance," said Orie. "Your help was a valuable asset to our mission."

"Yeah whatever," snarled Carmine. "Just go do whatever it is you're doing. I've got a bone to pick with that Paradox skank."

The two split up. Orie made her way to some staircases and began to ascend to the higher levels in hopes that she could find some documents or eavesdrop on conversations. As she ascended, she could hear men shouting at each other as well as Carmine's insane laughter. 'Not the first choice I would have in a partner,' she thought. 'But the diversion certainly helps keep Amnesia busy.'

After clearing the first couple of floors but coming up short on anything, Orie went up a couple more floors. 'There has to be something around here,' she thought in irritation. She was running out of floors to search, how could there not be anything to use? She also noticed the considerable lack of opposition she was faced with. Sure, Carmine's insane and strong, but is it really possible that he's taking everyone on at once? And if he is, how is he surviving for this long?

She ascended to the top floor. This is it. There has to be something here she can use. She scanned the area for anything she could use, until she felt an intense amount of EXS radiating from a part of the level. It was a lead she could start with, and likely what she was looking for. Orie started to hide behind walls and bookcases, anything she could find, in hopes of not getting spotted. No way this wouldn't be protected, even with a madman fighting everyone downstairs.

She headed closer to a door that radiated massive amounts of EXS from it. As she stood there, discovering what it was that had the EXS she discovered, she realized it was the Abyss and this must have been the Altar Of Light And Dark. "Damn," she muttered. "With this much EXS floating around and the Abyss staring me in the face, could Paradox plan on becoming a Re-Birth?"

"My, perceptive one aren't you? Little lady of the Licht Kreis?" a voice that belonged to a woman's said. A chill went down Orie's spine. She was discovered before she had a chance to return to headquarters. A woman with long, blonde hair and dressed in a black and white dress stepped out from the shadows. "You know, it's impolite to enter other people's homes without permission," she teased. "Would you be so kind as to let us know you're visiting ahead of time?"

Orie bit her lip. This situation just got a lot more complicated. She stood her ground and put on a strong face. "Y-you are Paradox, leader of Amnesia, correct?" she stammered.

The woman nodded. "I would prefer going by the name Hilda, but I see my reputation seems to have spread more than I thought, even to your ilk. Now would you mind telling me what the Licht Kreis is doing, barging into my home without an invitation?"

The Executor drew her rapier. "My name is Orie Ballardiae, Fifth Executor of the Licht Kreis!" she said proudly. "I demand to know why the Abyss is here and why you are trying to replace order with chaos during the Hollow Night!"

Hilda smiled. "The Abyss is here because I strive to achieve the status of a Re-Birth. As for replacing order with chaos….well, that's because us in Amnesia are tired of restraining ourselves on the Nights. We're going to freely use our powers however we see fit, and no one, not even the Licht Kreis, is going to stop us."

Hilda looked over Orie a couple of times, which made the latter unnerved to say the least. "Orie…..Ballardiae was it? Fifth? I can't say that I have ever heard of you." Paradox casually waved her hand. "The only ones in Licht Kreis that I care about in the slightest are Adelheit, Zenith and Wagner. Especially Wagner; she's been giving us a hard time, seeing as how she murdered one of our closest comrades months ago. Nevertheless, I have no time for someone like you tonight."

Orie narrowed her eyes. "So you do not consider me a threat?" she asked. "True, I may not stand a chance against someone who strives to become a Re-Birth, but I will see to it that the hammer of justice shall fall upon you, even if it means my death!"

"You plan on fighting me?" laughed Hilda. "I suppose I can play with you a bit. Though I'm loathe to say that I need to keep you alive so that you can send a message back to your superiors. Imagine Adelheit's reaction when she sees her Fifth Executor battered and bruised from Amnesia!"

"That's enough out of you, Paradox!" shouted Orie. She drew her rapier. "Seeing as how my original mission of infiltration had changed, I shall see to it that you are punished for your deeds by the hand of the Licht Kreis, even if it means my death!"

The EXS around the two In-Births began to rapidly increase. Hilda began to float into the air, a dark aura surrounding her body along with black and white daggers materialized from her EXS. "If it means your death, does it?" mocked Hilda. "I figured sending you running back to headquarters in tatters would prove to be a sufficient enough message, but seeing as how you're that determined to stop me, I feel like killing off one of the Licht Kreis's executors would be more than enough of a warning."

The daggers around Hilda's body began to spin faster and faster. "Prepare yourself, Orie Ballardiae. Your time on this earth is coming to an end." She shot every single dagger she had materialized at Orie. "Die!" yelled Hilda in glee. Orie steadied herself as she braced for impact and closed her eyes.

The sound of daggers made an impact that sounded like iron clashing against crystal. Orie never felt herself get pierced by the daggers. She slowly opened her eyes to find a wall of red crystal in front of her with the daggers cracking it. Red crystal that resembled….blood? "Wh-what happened?" Hilda demanded. "How did you do such a thing?"

The daggers dematerialized and the crystal wall of blood returned to liquid. "Forget about the cannon fodder already, will ya?" a familiar-sounding voice said.


	5. Kill The Paradox

As if on cue, a blood-covered Carmine stepped out of the shadows and into the open. He smirked at Hilda's stunned reaction. "Looks like you've been having fun, putting together a whole collection of miserable little pissants."

"Indeed, and another miserable little pissant just walked through my door!" retorted Hilda. "Tonight has been oh-so-much fun!"

Carmine's smirk quickly turned into anger. "Tch, you got a mouth on you, don't you?" he muttered. "Stupid bitch. It takes courage to piss off someone like me. And I think courage like yours deserves a little reward." His face contorted into a mix of insanity and pleasure. "So I'll reward you by thoroughly BEATING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU!"

"My, aren't WE scary?" chuckled Hilda. She sobered up and began to get serious. "So what brings you here anyways, barging into my home, covered in blood stains and smelling like a back alley?"

"Just cut the crap already," snorted Carmine. "You sitting there on your throne, having all of these useless punks do your bidding. That's EXACTLY why I can't stand you. And that's exactly why I came to pound you into mulch."

Hilda shook her head in disbelief. "Unbelievable. That's your reason for storming through my gates and causing such a commotion?"

"Damn straight." Carmine's grin was starting to irritate Hilda. "I'm going to beat the crap out of you just because I don't like you. Nothing you say will change that. Anyways, isn't that what you've been doing to others all along? You throw all of the power-wielding rejects at each other and see who comes out on top. That's how we work?" His grin became wider and more twisted. "ISN'T IT PARADOX!?"

Hilda sighed and shrugged. "I suppose you do have a point, though your incredible lack of subtlety or tact is to be admired." She looked at Orie. "So tell me, what business do you two have with each other? It doesn't seem like a mere coincidence that you come at the same time and simultaneously give me a reason to kill you both."

Orie and Carmine looked at each other and then back at Hilda. "There was a mutual exchange between us," said Orie. "I came to gain further intelligence on Amnesia. Carmine came for you."

Carmine nodded. "Yeah. I could give two shits what the Licht Kreis are doing. I just came here to put you twelve feet under."

Hilda looked them over one more time and laughed. "A Fifth Executor of the Licht Kreis and a street rat covered in wounds are going to fight me? My my, you both should be in comedy. This will be over before you even get a chance to reach me."

Orie looked at Carmine and was alarmed at the amount of blood on his clothes. "Erm…..are you alright?" she asked. "You do have a rather large amount of blood on you. Are you wounded?"

Carmine smiled and shrugged. "Nah, I'm fine," he scoffed. "Yeah, I'm covered in a lot of blood." He glared at Hilda. "The thing is…..this isn't my blood. It's the blood of your lackeys!"

Hilda's eyes burned with rage. "Y-you KILLED my members!?" she bellowed.

"Not all of them," said Carmine. "I wasted some guys at the gate and near the entrance, but the rest of those pansies took off running without even giving me a fight. Man, you have to be scraping the barrel for the idiots you employ."

A smile crept upon Hilda's lips, but it wasn't one of pleasure. "Let me ask you both a question: would you prefer your deaths to be slow and painful? Or maybe quick and painful?" She raised herself back in the air and amplified the amount of EXS around her. "Because one way or another, neither of you are making it out of here alive!"

Orie readied her rapier and Carmine created blades of blood on his arms. Orie looked at Carmine. "I will take the lead. Please back me up." She got into a running stance.

Carmine was ecstatic. "As long as I'm the one to send her sorry ass to the grave, do whatever," he said. "Just don't get in my way."

Hilda materialized some daggers and pointed them right at her targets. "Now where were we? Ah yes. DIE!" She shot the daggers at the two, which they both dodged from opposite directions. Both of them hid behind a couple of pillars to evade the dagger barrage.

Orie tapped her rapier and called Thanatos. The paladin took a swing at Hilda with its sword, which she easily dodged. She shot some daggers at Thanatos, causing it to disappear. Suddenly, a shard of blood shot at her from the other side, which barely missed her. "I see you two are going to be more insufferable than I thought," she remarked. "Perhaps this is going to be fun after all."

Carmine cursed. A floating Hilda isn't giving them much to work with. He randomly kept shooting blood crystals at the woman, who dodged them with relative ease. Orie wasn't left with too many openings to work off of. Plus, Carmine's random shooting was going to get her hurt if she tried anything. "Carmine, try to shoot more accurately!" she called out. "She's not even trying that hard!"

"Shut up! I know what I'm doing!" barked Carmine. He stopped shooting for a bit to catch his breath. The problem with using your own blood as a weapon is just that. You're exchanging your own life to fight.

Hilda shook her head in mockery. "Aw, is the poor little puppy running out of energy already?" she said. "If your accuracy is anything to go off of, you're all bark and no bite."

Carmine looked up at Hilda and smiled. "I wasn't aiming for you, dipshit."

"What?" Hilda looked around her and saw multiple puddles of blood spread around her. Much to her shock, she also saw a puddle of blood right by her foot.

"RISE!" Carmine shouted while raising his arm up. From every pool of blood came a stalagmite jutting out at Hilda, one of which went through her foot.

"Guh," Hilda winced. She barely had time to summon the daggers to take out the rest of the stalagmites coming at her. Her foot was impaled and bloody however. She looked back at Carmine. "That's a neat party trick you have there," she spat. "Manipulating your own blood to use as a weapon. You better hope you don't run out of blood too early though or you won't live to see the end of this."

"Oh don't worry," said Carmine. He ran right at her, blood blades on his arm at the ready. She kept summoning daggers at him, though he kept repelling them with his arms. Hilda was getting incredibly anxious and kept shooting more daggers at him. She was too late however. Within seconds, he had her by the neck. "If I need more blood, I'm more than happy to accept donations," he said in her face. He squeezed and drained some of the blood from Hilda's face.

As Hilda struggled to get free from Carmine's grasp, the hemomancer looked over at Orie. "Yo Lady!" he yelled. "Your turn!" He kicked Hilda hard and sent her near Orie's side of the Altar.

"Sacred spire!" yelled Orie. She dashed at Hilda's flying body and thrust at her several times with her rapier, followed by two upward thrusts into the air.

Hilda let out a cough of blood from the impact. Her stomach had some wounds, but nothing lethal. She was really angry now. "Alright, I've spent enough time playing with you two," she said coarsely. "I'm going to rip you both apart limb from limb!" She summoned a hoard of daggers so great in numbers that it blackened her side of the room.

Orie and Carmine dashed for the pillars again as she sent wave after wave of daggers flying at them. They were flying at such high velocities that they were cracking the walls and tearing apart furniture. Unfortunately for Carmine, the pillar he was hiding behind was starting to break apart at its core from the continuous dagger onslaught. Suddenly, a piece of it gave way and started to break from the core, falling right for him.

"Thanatos!" The paladin pushed Carmine out of the way and took the hit from the falling pillar. Carmine looked over to see Orie giving him a nod. He returned with a nod of his own and returned his gaze to the murderous Hilda. "Carmine, give me an opening!" Orie called.

"Just leave something for me, will ya?" he responded. He focused on Hilda and started shooting blood spikes at her. She kept dodging and shielding herself with her daggers. He then started shooting around her again, leaving little pools of blood in their wake.

Hilda narrowed her eyes as she sidestepped the blood pools' inevitable transformation into stalagmites. "You don't honestly think I'll fall for the same trick twice, do you?" she insulted. "You must be dumber than I thou-" She never got a chance to finish her words as she was grabbed by the arms from behind by Thanatos. A beam of light radiated off of it and blasted her into a nearby wall. Carmine was hot on her heels and started slashing at her with his arms, leaving cuts all over her dress and body.

"Ha, now THIS is what I call fun!" The blood-red punk exclaimed. He grabbed her and pushed her face into the ground. After stomping on her a few times, he stepped off and raised his arm again. "NO ESCAPE!" he yelled. A giant stalagmite raised from where Hilda was at, encasing everything but her head in a crystal of blood.

Hilda struggled to get free, but to no avail. "What? What is this?" she yelled out. "What did you do to me!?"

"You ain't going anywhere," said Carmine. "You're going to sit there and let us play with you while I see your face twist in pain and humiliation! How does it feel to see your pride ripped away from you? Huh, Paradox!?"

Orie walked over to the two. "You've lost, Paradox," she said. "Your pride and emotions clouded your judgment. The moment you lost yourself to rage was the moment this battle was over."

Hilda gritted her teeth. "To think I was defeated by a Fifth Executor and a rotten mongrel like him! I'm supposed to be eternal!"

Carmine slapped her hard enough to make blood fly from her mouth. "I guess I'm just that strong, huh? Pathetic pieces of shit like you don't deserve to live forever." He leaned in really close to her. "Do me a favor. When you get to Hell, warn all of the demons about me. HYAHAHAHAHA!"

Hilda's face was contorted in defeat and broken pride. "I….Paradox, cannot be vanquished," she squeaked. "Not like this! Mark my words! The next time we meet, both of you will be down on your hands and knees, begging for forgiveness!"

"Never again will you terrorize anyone on this Night or take part in any more unruly behavior, Hilda of Amnesia," Orie said softly. She turned to Carmine. "As I had promised, she is yours to do what you will. My mission, as much of a chagrin it is that it wasn't what was assigned to me, is now complete."

But Carmine wasn't looking at Hilda nor did he show any signs of ending her life. "You know, as much fun as it is to humiliate Amnesia," started Carmine. "I still sense something with a lot more power than her around here. And I'm guessing it's coming from those doors."

Hilda's face lit up in alarm. "D-door!? Wh-what are you thinking!?" she stammered. "If you open that door up, everything will be devoured!"

He looked back at her. "Shut up already! You should be happy I'm not here cutting your pathetic little head off instead! Besides, something's going to "devour me?" I'd like to see them try."

Orie ran in front of him. "Hold on a second," she said. "You shouldn't be opening doors like that. You don't know what kind of chaos that could bring!"

Carmine shoved her out of the way and continued towards the door. "Pipe down! I don't care what you have to say anymore. We agreed to get to Amnesia and we beat down Paradox. Now let me go."

Orie never got a chance to stop him. Before she could try summoning Thanatos to repel Carmine, he already had his hands on the handles. "Carmine, no!" she yelled in terror."

"Come and get me, asshole!" challenged Carmine. He pulled the doors open and faced what was behind them. But what was behind them wasn't any sort of form; it was pure darkness and EXS. Pure darkness and EXS that rapidly poured out of the doors and into the Altar. "Wh-what the hell is this!?" growled Carmine. He didn't even have a chance to register the fact that Orie was now dragging him by the arm and towards the exit.

After coming to the conclusion that something bad was happening, Carmine started running with Orie to escape the darkness heading their way. Hilda was lost in the sea of darkness and it was hot on their heels. Orie looked back and saw they weren't going to make it. Only one thought popped into her mind, and it wasn't a good one. "We're going to die," she said under her breath.

Carmine scowled at those words. Nothing was going to kill him without a fight and this was no different. He grabbed her hand. "If you don't want to die, hang the hell on!" he yelled. They both raced for the exit. "Ten meters, Lady! Don't die now!" he shouted.

Unfortunately for them, a tentacle reached out from the darkness and tripped Orie up, dragging Carmine down with her. "No….." Orie deadpanned. "N-not like this…"

Carmine made one last effort to crawl to the exit, dragging Orie's body with him. It was all in vain however as the darkness swallowed them both up. "Goddamn it," he said before his vision went black.


	6. Kill The Arrival

Carmine slowly started to regain consciousness. "Am I…...am I dead?" he thought to himself. He slowly started to gain his bearings and felt around for any sign of where he was. The only things that he could conclude were that he was outside and that he was laying on some grass. He opened up his eyes and tried to sit up, but the soreness he felt from the fight with Hilda was starting to register. "Ow, damn it," he said. "That darkness stuff really did a number on me."

After a few more minutes of straining, realizing his hair, skin, and eyes returned to their normal color, and figuring out that he was in a forest, he slowly stood up and took a look around. He saw Orie's body a few meters away and started running for it. He grabbed her shoulders and started to shake her. "Hey, wake up!" he yelled. "I don't know where we are, but this sure as hell ain't Kanzakai!"

Orie slowly started to regain consciousness and finally realized she was being shaken awake by Carmine. "Wait! Stop! Carmine!" she yelled through constant shakes. "I'm! Awake! Already!" Carmine ceased his shaking and let go, inadvertently dropping her back to the ground. Orie slowly stood back up, stretching her limbs out in the process. "My, talk about a rude awakening," she sneered.

"Tch, give me a break," he shot back. "If I really wanted to, I would have kicked you awake instead."

"You might as well have!" yelled Orie. "You already ignored our warnings, summoned a massive wave of darkness that's doing who-knows-what, got us swallowed up by it and now we're in the middle of a forest with no idea where we are! What more could you possibly do to make this day worse!?"

Carmine grabbed her dress collar and leaned in close to her face. "Listen, Lady…"

"It's Orie!"

"Like I give a shit! If Paradox had something behind those doors, she was going to open them at some point after we left. Would you rather that happen instead? Or would you have taken it on yourself?"

Orie pushed him off of her. "You shouldn't have even made that an option! You should have finished off Paradox when you had the chance! Or at the very least restrained her! What are we supposed to do now!?"

"Grrr… just shut up and let me think a second." Carmine took a look around and noticed that there was a dirt path right beyond some trees. "Alright, we need to get to the path. It's got to lead us to a city of some sort."

"To think that there is a functioning brain beyond that insanity," breathed Orie.

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing! Let's keep moving!"

The two In-Births started walking down the dirt path, not entirely sure where it was they were heading, but hoping that it led to some sign of civilization. They walked for about an hour and stopped to sit down and rest. "Jeez, it's like this path doesn't end!" complained Carmine. "Did we go the wrong way or something?"

Orie tried using her cell phone to get a layout of the area. However, the phone wasn't being too helpful for their situation. "No response?" she said with a shock. "But how can this be? No signal is one thing in a forest, but it's like my phone refuses to work."

"Oh great. Yeah, that's real great," deadpanned Carmine. "So now we're stuck in the middle of nowhere, walking to who-knows-where, without anything giving us an idea of where we are! Yeah, great day we're having here!"

"Yeah, and whose fault is that?" scolded Orie.

Carmine stood up and glared at her. "You know, I'm getting REAL sick of your attitude. You want to go? I'll make you cry right now!"

Orie stood up and got right in his face. "If it means I can get revenge on you for getting us into this situation, then I'll be more than happy to put you in your place!"

They continued their bickering for one more minute when all of a sudden they heard some rumbles from the trees. They turned to the direction of the commotion and out came a giant creature with golden fur, two giant horns protruding from its head, and three red eyes. They took a step back as the creature took a step forward.

"Wh-what the hell is that thing!?" Carmine asked.

Orie was starting to get scared herself. "I-I-I don't know!" she cried. "I've never seen a creature like this before!"

Carmine took a fighting stance and faced the creature. "Looks like we're gonna have to make this doggy heel, huh?"

"You can't be serious!" reasoned Orie. "The Night has passed already! It's daytime, how are our powers going to work when it's daytime!?"

But Carmine wasn't the slightest bit concerned with that detail. "Doesn't hurt to try," he said. He tried to turn his hair, arms and eyes red. Surprisingly, he was met with success. He took a look at his arms and hair. "Heh, guess I still have enough EXS to do this much," he said. He looked back at the creature. "Now let's see if I can do anything else."

Orie took note of the fact that Carmine could still use his EXS despite it not being during a Night and tried herself. She materialized Thanatos with no difficulty whatsoever. "Wh-why am I able to do this?" she asked to no one in particular. "This shouldn't be possible!"

A tiny spike of blood whizzed past her face. She turned to Carmine, who had his arm aimed at her. "If you're done mooning over your knight over there," he said impatiently. "We've got bigger fish to fry."

She nodded. "Right." They faced the beast and readied themselves for battle. Suddenly, before the creature had a chance to attack them, its head was severed from its body. As the body of their attempted assailant dropped dead, the two were stunned and looked for the source of the kill.

Out came a boy roughly their age from behind its body. He had brown hair, a cream-colored sweater and blue jeans. In his hand was a bloody sword, presumably from the severed head. "Class two dangerbeast. A Jackaleo." He looked at them. "How are you guys doing? Not hurt too bad, are you?"

"What was that thing?" Orie said. "I've never seen anything like it in my life."

The boy looked at the corpse of the Jackaleo and then back at them. "Hmm, you guys must not be from around here, huh?" he asked. "Jackaleos are pretty common around the Imperial Empire." He turned to Carmine. "Also, what's with the red hair, eyes and arms?"

"Mind your own business, punk," spat Carmine.

Orie rolled her eyes at Carmine's behavior. "More importantly, what is the 'Imperial Empire?' And do you know how we would be able to get to Kanzakai from here?"

The boy took a hard look at Orie for signs that she was crazy. "You must be joking," he said. "Neither of you know about the Imperial Empire. The country you're in right now. You're either delusional or really, REALLY lost. To add to that, I've never heard of a place called Kanzakai. What region is that in?"

Carmine and Orie worriedly exchanged glances. "Erm…..would you mind telling me where the nearest Licht Kreis branch around here is?" Orie asked, hoping that what she was thinking wasn't coming true and that they didn't get sent somewhere foreign.

The boy was starting to get confused. "Licht Kreis? No idea what that is."

Orie, terrified, turned to Carmine. "I don't know what happened at Amnesia, but I'm getting concerned. The Licht Kreis is a world-renowned organization. No way he wouldn't know about us!"

Carmine shrugged her off. "Knock it off, he's just screwing with us. I doubt we'd be sent to some other universe." He walked up to the boy and grabbed his shirt collar. "Alright chump, we're not in the mood to be messed with today. Now start giving us some answers. Where are we and who are you!?"

The boy pushed him off. "Like I told you, you're in the Imperial Empire!" he retorted. "Also, my name is Tatsumi. I'm heading to the Imperial Capital to become an officer of the Imperial Army."

Before Carmine could pursue more violent measures of interrogation, Orie separated the two boys. "It seems we're lost indeed," Orie said, trying to keep the terror she was feeling out of her words. "My name is Orie Ballardiae and this is Carmine Prime. We could use your help navigating this area if you would be so kind."

Tatsumi smiled. "I don't see why not. You two seem like good people." He looked at Carmine again. "Or at least you do, Orie was it? Feel free to come with me."

Carmine looked at Orie. "This guy's already starting to annoy me."

"Just be quiet and follow him," said the Executor. "He's the only lead we have to use. We have no clue where we are and I don't intend to ruin the chance to find out."

Tatsumi, Orie and Carmine walked for a while, exchanging information about the area and about each other along the way. Tatsumi explained that he was traveling with his two friends, Sayo and Ieyasu, to the Imperial Capital to become officers in the army, but they were separated when the three were attacked by bandits. Orie and Carmine tried really hard to explain where they were from and how they (may have) ended up in the Central Region, only to further confuse their new travel companion. "The EXS, huh?" inquired Tatsumi. "I'm not sure what that is or how it exists exactly, but these Voids sound like shadow versions of dangerbeasts."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," replied Orie. She was having a hard time explain all of this to someone who knew nothing about Voids, In-Births, EXS or the Hollow Night and she was starting to get frustrated. "The only difference is that these beasts feed on a person's EXS, which is their earthly energy. Those that survive the attack become In-Births and can materialize EXS like Voids. Those that do not become Voids themselves."

Tatsumi retched at the sound of In-Birth. "I don't know who came up with that vocabulary, but they have some really weird ideas," he said. "From what you're telling me, you're both In-Births?" They nodded. "Interesting, so you have special powers or something?"

"Damn right," said Carmine. "She can summon some knight thing and I can manipulate my blood. Perfect for skewering assholes that get in my way."

Tatsumi smiled. "Ah, so you can do more than turn your skin, eyes and hair red, huh?" he said with a laugh. "Good, I was getting disappointed."

Carmine grunted. "Something tells me I need to show you a demonstration. Because people that insult my blood spike usually get impaled by it later."

A rumble was heard not too far away along with a roar. The three looked in the direction of the roar and saw that it was down the path towards a carriage. "Looks like you can show me that on whatever it is that's making that sound," said Tatsumi. The three started running towards the commotion, weapons drawn and ready for combat.


	7. Kill The Darkness

"I-it's an Earth Dragon!" some voices from the carriage said. The Earth Dragon reached out for the two drivers with its claws, when all of a sudden the claws were severed along with the arm it belonged to. As the arm fell behind the dragon, its attacker traveled along with it.

"Class one dangerbeast," Tatsumi said, looking back at his prey. "This should be fun."

The dragon faced Tatsumi and roared loud at him. "Aw, don't be mad," joked Tatsumi as the dragon's other arm came to meet him. The arm missed where Tatsumi used to be. Instead, he was high above the dragon, blade facing down at it. "We'll take care of ya!" As soon as the last word left his mouth, Tatsumi slashed downward, Orie used Thanatos to slash left and Carmine slashed right. Within seconds, the Earth Dragon fell dead and bloody.

"That was incredible, kids!" one of the drivers remarked. "You three took on a class one dangerbeast all by yourselves!"

Tatsumi turned around with a twinkle in his eye. "Aw, it was nothing!" he gushed. "It was like taking candy from a big scaly baby!" Neither the drivers nor his new friends were impressed by his words. Carmine coughed "loser." "And by the way, the name's Tatsumi. The whole capital's gonna know my name before too long. So you might want to remember it."

"So you're going to the Imperial Capital to seek your fortune…" the driver said, not hiding the doubt in his words.

"Yep! Where I come from, everyone dreams of making it big in the capital!"

The driver sighed. "Listen kid, the Imperial Capital isn't some perfect dreamland. Sure, it's the big city, but it's been overrun with monsters even more dangerous than this dangerbeast."

Tatsumi tilted his head in confusion. "I don't get it. How can the Imperial Capital be overrun by dangerbeasts?"

"Not those monsters. They're humans, but with the hearts of monsters. Damn place is crawling with them." Orie and Carmine exchanged concerned glances.

Tatsumi didn't seem the least bit worried. "Pfft, thanks guys, but I'm not going to turn back now. You see, my friends and I have a mission. A mission to make a fortune and save our village."

The three bid the carriage farewell and continued heading towards the capital. Orie looked over at Tatsumi. "Erm, what do you think they mean by "humans with hearts of monsters, anyways?" she asked.

Carmine rolled his eyes. "Read between the lines, Lady," he said. "They mean there's some scumbags over there and someone needs to smack them around a bit. Every city has them."

Orie muttered something about him not calling her by her name again. "It doesn't matter," Tatsumi replied. "Whatever stands in our way isn't going to stop me from sending money to my village. And it isn't going to stop me from reuniting with Sayo and Ieyasu either."

They reached the capital's gates and walked inside. They were greeted with an amazing sight of the buildings and marketplace. "Aw, man! The capital's even bigger than I thought!" Tatsumi exclaimed. "If things work out here, I could just buy the village!"

Orie was fascinated by the shops in the area. "My, what a wonderful selection of clothes and food!" she said, almost in the same tone as Tatsumi. "I'll have to make a note to stop by here later."

Carmine however, was unamused. "Pah, you see one city, you've seen them all," he said. "Food, clothes, annoying salesmen, it's all the same damn thing."

Tatsumi ignored him. "Alright, it's time to get to the barracks." The three started walking towards Tatsumi's potential enlistment. Unknown to them, someone was watching them from afar.

Carmine and Orie were waiting outside for Tatsumi to get done enlisting, when all of a sudden the man in question was thrown back out into the street. He got back up and faced the enlistment officer who threw him out. "Aw, come on! Can't I just take the test or something!?" he complained.

"There's a depression going on! I already got more applicants than I can handle!" the officer shot back. "I ain't gonna waste a spot on some stupid kid! Now beat it!"

Tatsumi sat on the ground, defeated and unsure of what to do. "Maybe I could stage a kidnapping or something…." he said to himself. Suddenly, he looked at Carmine. "Hey Carmine! You look like a street thug, mind doing me a-"

"Don't even think about it," rejected Carmine.

While Tatsumi continued to think about his options, a blonde woman wearing a black strapless bra and white chaps came over to greet them. "Hellooooooo!" she chirped. "What's with the long face, little guy? It'll be alright, Big Sis is here to cheer you up!"

Tatsumi was more focused on the breasts that were staring in front of his face more than the woman greeting him. Orie was blushing from embarrassment. Carmine was trying to hold back a laugh. The woman took notice of this and pushed his face up to her own. "Try to focus here, buddy." Tatsumi stood up to properly face her. "Soooo, let me guess. You came here from the countryside in search of fame and fortune, didn't ya?"

That took him by surprise. "How'd you know that!?"

She shrugged. "I've lived here a long time. It's easy to spot a new face. Hey, I know the secret to becoming an officer in the army super-quick!"

Tatsumi's face lit up at the sound of "super-quick." "Really!? Tell me!"

The woman smiled. "Weeeeeeell….first you gotta treat me to lunch."

He hung his head and sighed. "I suppose that's fair if you're going to help me," he said. He turned to Carmine and Orie. "Hey, do you two want to join us?"

"I'd be happy to," Orie replied."

Carmine looked around and sighed. "I guess it beats walking around without knowing where I'm at," he resigned.

Five minutes later, the four of them were sitting in a tavern having lunch, with Carmine and the woman consuming a surprising amount of booze. The bartender was about to inquire about Carmine's age, until he was threatened with a broken beer bottle. Tatsumi was starting to get impatient with their drinking and Orie was starting to feel the same way. Carmine was too tipsy to care. "Look, tell me how to become an officer already, will you!?" he demanded.

The woman stopped drinking for a second and put down her glass. She leaned in. "Yeah….about that. First, you're gonna need a lot of money. See, I know someone in the army. He can hook you up if you can make it worth his while."

Tatsumi put a bag of gold on the table. "Will this be enough?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Not bad! This could get you to lieutenant! Where did this come from?"

Tatsumi smiled. "We got rewarded for killing a class one dangerbeast and we all got a cut. But more importantly. What'll I need to get to captain?"

She waved her hand. "That's a lot of dough, but you're gonna need more to hit captain, pal."

Tatsumi turned to Carmine and Orie. "Hey...guys? I hate to ask this, but could I borrow some cash? I really need this."

Carmine waved him off. "Y-yeah r-right," he slurred. "I ain't gonna share m-m-my money with someone t-t-that has more than I-I do."

"Sure." Everyone looked at Orie. "It's only fair since you treated us to lunch and helped us get to the city. I hope this will be enough to assist you." She put her own bag of reward money on the table.

"Goody two-shoes," muttered Carmine.

The woman nodded. "Yep, you're gonna hit captain with that amount!" she said. She got up and took the bag of cash. "I'm gonna go talk to him. You wait right here until I come back, alright?"

"See ya!" gushed Tatsumi.

Orie got up from the table. Carmine crumpled to the floor, still feeling the effects of the drinks he had. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Tatsumi," said Orie. "I hope you make it big in the army one day."

Tatsumi nodded. "Yeah, thanks for your help as well, Orie," he said. "And you too, Carmine." The latter was still trying to stand up. Orie put his arm around her shoulders. "I hope I'll see you two again someday."

Orie and a drunken Carmine stepped out of the tavern and into the streets to explore. They looked around at the shops and people scattered around the city. More importantly, they were trying to find somewhere to stay for the night. An imperial officer noticed the two and walked to them. Orie, ever the advocate for respecting authority, stood and waited for the officer. "Ma'am, how are you doing today?" he asked in a gruff tone.

"I'm doing well, thank you," she replied. She wasn't sure why he was asking about them, but decided to play along.

The officer looked over at Carmine. "Seems your friend here had one too many today," he said. "Sound about right?"

Orie got nervous. If the two of them ended up in jail over Carmine's underage drinking, they were finished. "N-not at all, Officer," she stammered. "My friend here is just really tired and sore from the travel here, that's all."

"Uh-huh, that's what they all say," he said, clearly not convinced. "Mind telling me how old you two are?"

Orie sighed and did the last thing she wanted to do as a member of Licht Kreis: break the law. She pulled out Carmine's bag of coins. "Would this amount make you believe that we're of age?" she asked, hoping her bribe paid off.

The officer looked at the surprisingly huge amount of coins in the bag. He straightened himself out and tipped his helmet at them. "Y-yes! I can confirm that you're both of legal age to drink! You have a good day now and rest up, understand?"

As he walked away from them, two things crossed Orie's mind:

1: she bribed an officer of the law

2: they were now penniless

"This is going to be an ugly night for us," she sighed.

Hours later, and after Carmine sobered up, the two of them were laid down near a building, trying to find a way to make camp for the night seeing as how they had no money to afford anything. "I would have taken jail over this any day!" complained Carmine. "At least we'd be able to sleep somewhere!"

"Oh give me a break!" retorted Orie. "If we were thrown in jail, there's no telling how long we would be in there for! We have no one but each other to contact and we don't know the rules of this world. What was I supposed to do?"

Carmine laid down and pulled a sheet of cardboard over him for a blanket. Orie huddled into a corner and put her arms around her legs. This world was getting worse for them by the hour. A few minutes later, a carriage pulled up in front of the two. The two guards looked back at the passenger. "These two too, m'lady?" one of them asked. "This would make three tonight."

"Yes, please," a female voice said. The door to the carriage opened up and out came a young girl. She walked up to them. "Excuse me?" she said. "Do you two need some place to rest for the night?"

Orie frowned. "I-I appreciate your generosity, but I'm afraid my friend and I don't have any money to offer."

She giggled. "Well if you did, I'm sure you wouldn't try to sleep in the streets, would you?"

The two guardss walked up behind her. "Lady Aria enjoys helping those with nowhere to go," one of them said. "You should consider taking her offer."

Orie smiled. "Then it would be my pleasure to take you up on your offer. Thank you very much." She looked over at Carmine, who wasn't moving. "Carmine, we've found shelter for the night," she said. "Let's go."

Carmine still didn't move. "I don't know," he said. "After how shitty this day's gone for us, I don't trust anyone here."

One of the guards shrugged. "If you're more comfortable sleeping outside in the cold, then we will not argue with you."

Carmine frowned. He really hated the idea of freeloading off of someone, especially since those tended to come with debts to pay back. He looked at Orie and then Aria and her drivers. He sighed. "Fine, I'll go too."

They got into the carriage with Aria, when suddenly they were met with a friendly face. "T-tatsumi?" they said at the same time.

Tatsumi smiled. "Hey guys, how's it going?" he said with a wave.

Orie was confused. "Wait, weren't you going to get into the army?" she asked. "Why is Lady Aria picking you up as well?"

Tatsumi's smile quickly faded. He hung his head. "The blonde girl robbed me," he admitted. "I should have known it wouldn't be that easy."

Aria smiled at him. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure we can help you out."

Some time later, the four of them arrived at Aria's residence and were meeting with her parents. "Oh, looks like Aria brought home three more guests!" her father said.

"Oh my, so it would seem!" her mother added. "How many does this make?"

"Mother!"

As they laughed, Tatsumi and Orie quickly bowed their heads. "Thank you for having us," they said at the same time.

"Yeah, thanks I guess," Carmine said, pretending to care.

Aria's father put his hand up. "Ah, there's no need to be so formal. Aria's generosity is something her mother and I have grown to like. We hate to see people left out on the street to die from the cold."

"That's quite respectable indeed," replied Orie. "I admire your selflessness."

"So, why don't we settle for some tea and you can tell us all about yourselves?" her mother asked.

"Yeah, sounds great!" said Tatsumi.

The six of them sat down and talked about Tatsumi's friends and how Orie and Carmine were simply lost travelers. It wasn't easy to explain how they got lost, but they managed. The next day they were sent to travel the city with Aria…...at the cost of going shopping and carrying all of her numerous purchases.

Tatsumi was struggling with his stack of gifts. "Man, Lady Aria is a pretty serious shopper, isn't she?" he said. "I mean, I don't think I've seen so much stuff before."

"The young lady does enjoy it," replied a guard. "But I feel like all women behave this way."

"I'm inclined to disagree," Orie said through bated breaths. Her own stack of gifts were giving her trouble. "Or at least to this extent! This is madness!"

"Seriously! Who needs this many dresses!?" complained Carmine.

The guard pointed at something. "Oh, and Tatsumi, Orie and Carmine? You see that castle over there?" They turned to it. "That is the center of the entire empire. That's where everything happens." They gawked at the size of the massive structure.

"Woah! I've always wanted to see where the emperor makes decisions for the whole country!" Tatsumi exclaimed.

The guard frowned. He leaned in close to Tatsumi. "Well, not exactly," he said. "You see, the emperor is just a child. This land is plagued by corruption. It's the minister who controls the emperor from the shad-"

"Ministe-!?" Tatsumi's mouth was covered by the guard's hand.

"Do not let yourself be heard!" the guard warned. "Those who oppose are beheaded."

Tatsumi hung his head in anger. "So he's the one who ordered all those heavy taxes on my village…" he said. Both Carmine and Orie shared disgusted glances. Orie, for the corruption and mistreatment of his subjects. Carmine, because the minister sounded like an asshole.

The guard pointed at some posters placed on a wall. "On top of that, we're dealing with this scum." The posters showed the faces of some people along with their names, bounties, and the mutual organization they were affiliated with: Night Raid. "A band of assassins terrorizing the area. As the name implies, they attack at night. High-ranking officials and the upper class make up most of their targets. It's only wise to be very cautious."

Later that night, Tatsumi was sleeping in his room, Orie was sleeping in her bed and Carmine was sleeping on the floor of their room. All three of them woke up from the sound of a body hitting the floor. They bolted out of their rooms and met up. "Did you guys hear that too!?" Tatsumi asked.

"Yes," Orie confirmed. "I don't know what it was, but it doesn't sound like anything good. We need to investigate at once!"

"Hey, you guys wanna hurry up already?" Carmine scolded. They both nodded and started running down the hall. They stopped when they saw shadows resembling people blocking out the moonlight-lit windows. Then they saw them: five members of Night Raid, standing on what looked like string.

"That's them," said Tatsumi. "Night Raid."

Orie's face lit up in alarm. "They're after Aria's family! We have to hurry!"

Carmine smirked. "Let me at 'em," he said. You guys can go save them all you want. I want a crack at these clowns."

Orie smacked him in the back of the head. "Is now really the time to be bloodthirsty?" she chided. "We've got people to save!"

"Ugh, fine! We'll go save the stupid family!" They were about to run when they saw two of the Night Raid members drop down from the string and face three of the guards. Within seconds, they were slaughtered without the assassins breaking a sweat.

"Shit!" cried Tatsumi. "Come on, we have to go protect Miss Aria!" The three of them sprinted to go find Aria. They ran outside, hoping they were taking the right path since the building seemed deserted.

They kept running and heard some voices that belonged to Aria and one of her guards. They caught up to them in front of a storage shed. "There you are!" panted Tatsumi.

"Great, you three made it," the guard said. "I'm going to take the young lady and put her somewhere safe. You do whatever you can to stall the enemy until then, got it?"

Tatsumi and Orie looked concerned. Carmine was ready. "No problem," he said. "Though I think I'm gonna do more than stall them, if you know what I mean." He turned his hair, eyes and arms red and stood between them and whatever was coming.

"Carmine, are you insane!?" Tatsumi yelled. "You saw what they did to the guards, you're not going to stand-"

"Jesus, shut up already, will ya?" Carmine didn't move. "Someone's going to die here today and it sure as hell ain't gonna be me!"

A second later, a girl with black hair, red eyes, red greaves and a black dress dropped down in front of them. She had her sword ready to kill. Carmine smiled. "Right on time," he chuckled. "Bring it on!"

The girl dashed at him, but before Carmine could counter with his blood blades, she jumped in the air and landed on his head. "You're not a target," she said. Using Carmine's head as a launching pad, she jumped off as dashed towards Aria and the guard.

"Damn it!" The guard drew his machine pistol and started shooting at her.

She was too quick for him to read and quickly closed the distance. "You are." She slashed his body in half with her sword and turned her attention to Aria, who was cowering in fear. The girl slowly walked up to her, sword readying its attention on its next victim. "You deserve this."

"Stop right there!" She barely avoided a beheading from Tatsumi's own sword. Carmine stood beside Tatsumi, ready for a fight, while Orie shielded Aria.

The girl was annoyed. "None of you are targets. You don't have to die."

"I'm not gonna let you kill a defenseless little girl!" shouted Tatsumi.

"So you're going to try and stop me?" she asked, her voice terrifyingly calm.

"I'm not gonna back down now."

She flashed her blade at him, which unnerved him. "Then you all have made your choice." She and Tatsumi dashed at each other and clashed swords. Tatsumi swiped at her, only to be met with a kick to the back. He turned to brace himself for another attack, but was quickly stabbed in the heart by her.

"Tatsumi!" Orie and Aria yelled.

"Damn it you suck!" Carmine yelled.

Tatsumi laid motionless on the ground for a few seconds, but then slowly stood back up. The girl never came any closer, but kept her sword trained on him the whole time. He turned to her. "Why'd you back off all of a sudden?" he asked.

"Because it felt like I hit some sort of armor," she replied.

He took out a small statue and looked at where the blade hit it. "I guess the gods were looking out for me after all," he said to no one in particular.

"The hell is that thing?" Carmine asked.

"It's a statue of the god in our village," answered Tatsumi. "They gave it to me before I left. Guess it's a life-saver after all."

The girl ignored the explanation. "She must die," she said.

Tatsumi panicked. "Wait wait wait, you just want to steal this girl's money don't you? You don't have to kill her!"

She wasn't listening. She dashed at him and swung her sword, only to be met by a blade of blood.

"Alright, I'm getting sick of playing second fiddle to this jackass," said Carmine, smirking at the unamused girl in front of him. "If you want to fight, I'd be more than happy to stomp you!"

She backed off. "I see you three are going to be more of a hindrance than I thought. Very well. You sealed your own fate." She dashed at Carmine, but before she could swing, she was pulled back by a hand. She looked up to see who it was, only to see the blonde woman Tatsumi, Carmine and Orie met earlier. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"We've got some time left, and I kind of owe this guy a favor," she said. "I'm pretty sure he'd like to cash it in now." She smiled at Tatsumi, who was still stunned by the reprieve. Carmine was annoyed that his fight was interrupted.

As soon as Tatsumi registered who it was, he immediately got angry. "Hey, you're the girl who robbed me!" he yelled.

She smiled and waved at him. "Yep! How's it going?" She looked back over at Carmine. "Hey pal, good to see you're sober again!" She was met with a middle finger from him. She turned back to Tatsumi. "Listen, earlier you were concerned we were here to kill innocent people." She looked over at the storage shed. "I think you might see things a little differently behind those doors."

The woman kicked the doors open to reveal bodies, decayed and fresh, strewn everywhere in different kinds of torture devices or behind cages. "Wh-what is all this?" Tatsumi asked, horrified.

"We found they like picking up out-of-town newcomers from the countryside and torture them to death for their own sick, twisted form of entertainment." Tatsumi stepped inside, the horror in his eyes growing larger with each step. "That's the reality of this poor, innocent little family."

Tatsumi's eyes went wide when he saw one body in particular hanging from the ceiling. "S-sayo…." he trembled.

"Do you know who that girl is?" the blonde woman asked.

Aria slowly started to walk away, only to be grabbed by Thanatos. "You're not going to run away," warned Orie. "You stay here while we figure this out."

"These guys really did this?" deadpanned Tatsumi.

"Yes they did."

"She's lying!" pleaded Aria. "I had no idea anything like that was going on! Who would you believe? These….these murderers!? Or the one who saved you!?"

"T-tatsumi…." a pained voice said from inside the shed. Tatsumi turned to the sound of the voice to see a body that was alive, but slowly rotting, looking back at him. "I-is that you? I-it's me…"

"I-ieyasu!?" he cried.

"She invited us to stay at her house. She gave us something to eat and everything went black. Then we woke up here!" Ieyasu had tears in his eyes. "Then….that girl tortured Sayo to death!"

Aria had enough. "Fine! Fine, so I did it okay!? These trash are just worthless filth! They're nothing but livestock to use as I see fit! Garbage like her doesn't have the right to have such beautiful hair! She should be lucky that I gave her so much attention! Ungrateful bitch!"

"I'll kill her," the black-haired girl said. She drew her sword, ready for the kill.

"Wait," said Tatsumi.

The blonde woman sighed. "You're kidding. You're still going to defend her?"

He grabbed the hilt of his sword. "No." He swung at Aria and disemboweled her. "I'LL do it."

Orie, Carmine and the other two girls watched Tatsumi with various expressions.

"Th-thank you Tatsumi," said Ieyasu. Tatsumi, Orie and the two other girls walked in. Carmine stayed behind to keep stomping on the guard and Aria, yelling about being treated as livestock. "I needed to see that."

Ieyasu vomited blood everywhere and crumpled to the floor. "N-no…..Ieyasu…" cried Tatsumi.

"It's the Lobola virus," said the blonde woman.

"The mother liked to poison her victims with various medicines," added the black-haired girl.

"T-tatsumi…" choked Ieyasu. "Sayo never broke. She was incredible. So I wanted to…..go out a hero." On that last word, his body went limp.

"His strong will was the only thing keeping him alive," said the black-haired girl. She turned around. "Let's go."

"Hey, don't you think we should bring the three of them with us?" said the woman. "We could use some extra help."

Carmine took a break from beating what was left of the corpses to take notice of what was going on. "Wait, who the hell said I was going anywhere with you freaks?" he protested.

"Yes, why would we go anywhere with assassins?" added Orie.

The woman shrugged. "It's either that or we kill you right now. Your choice."

The two of them looked at each other and then back to the woman. They sighed at the same time and started following them, the woman dragging Tatsumi behind her.

"Hey! Stop dragging me!" whined Tatsumi. "I need to bury my friends!"

"Oh, stop complaining already," she said. "If you want, we'll bring the bodies back with us and bury them later, okay?"

"You're late!" a Night Raid member with pink hair and a matching dress yelled. She turned to Tatsumi, Orie and Carmine. "And who are they?"

The woman looked at them. "They're new recruits!" All three of them looked at her with shock. She smiled. "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Starting today, you're part of the team! Congratulations, you just joined Night Raid!"

Carmine was the first to protest. "Why the hell do you get to make that call?"

"Yeah, don't we get a say in this?" added Tatsumi.

"Just give up," the black-haired girl said. "Leone always gets her way."

The woman named Leone looked at her. "Aw, look at that! My best friend knows how it works." She turned to a guy in gray armor. "Bulat, they're all yours!"

The guy in the armor grabbed Tatsumi and Carmine and put them both under his arms, much to their irritation and complaints. Leone turned to Orie. "S-sorry, I could grab you too, but it wouldn't be as fun as going with Bulat."

Orie shook her head. "I'm loathe to being forced to join assassins, but I can travel on my own. Thank you."

The black-haired girl turned away from everyone. "The mission is complete. Let's head back to base." With that, everyone dropped down from the string and into darkness.

"Ugh, how did I get myself into this!?" complained Tatsumi.


	8. Kill Authority

The next day, Orie and Tatsumi were standing over the graves of Ieyasu and Sayo. They spent the morning burying their bodies and finding flowers to send them off with. Orie never felt any personal attachment to Tatsumi, but looking at their graves made her think of her friends back home. Mika...Kaguya...Lex...Hyde…..it was a disturbing thought that they could have been Sayo and Ieyasu and she would be in Tatsumi's position. She couldn't help but feel sympathy for Tatsumi and sat with him in silence, not daring to ruin the peaceful mourning he was portraying.

That moment was quickly shattered to pieces when Tatsumi felt something soft and lumpy lay on his head. He looked up to see Leone's breasts laying on him with her jokingly smiling at him all the while. Both him and Orie blushed and immediately scooted back. "Augh! Don't sneak up on me like that!" he cried.

Leone wasn't the least bit fazed by his complaints. "So…..have you both decided to join yet?" she asked. "You look like you'd both be good at being assassins, you know."

Orie and Tatsumi looked away. Neither one of them were excited to join the band of assassins. "Look, it's not a matter of whether I'd be good at it or not," he explained. "I just don't like the idea of killing people."

Orie nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, I share his sentiments. I had been assigned missions where killing was avoided if it could be helped, not that we were always able to avoid it, but I've never been told to directly kill someone. I don't know if I could do something like that."

Leone's smile never faded. "Well, I'm gonna introduce you all to the team anyway!"

Before she could get too far ahead, Orie stopped her. "By the way….Leone was it?" She was met with a nod. "Have you seen Carmine recently?"

Leone tried to stifle a giggle. "Yeah, as soon as we got here last night and he figured out that he wasn't leaving, he decided sleep near the dumpsters. Is he always like that?"

Orie shook her head in disbelief. "That boy's been giving me issues since I met him, I swear."

"Ah, he'll be alright. Now let's get going!" With that, Leone, Orie and Tatsumi all headed to the hideout to meet the rest of the team. And maybe find Carmine.

A little later, after finding Carmine passed out near some dumpsters, Leone led them to a girl with purple hair and glasses, dressed in a lavender Chinese-style dress, sitting down at a table. "Hey!" greeted Leone.

"Good morning!" she said cheerfully.

Leone introduced the three newcomers. "I'd like to introduce you to Tatsumi, Orie and Carmine. They were the ones we picked up last night, but they still don't want to join us."

They still don't want to be part of the team despite what's happened?" she inquired.

Leone shrugged. "They're a little hesitant, so I figured you could give them some words of encouragement."

The girl thought for a second. "Well since we showed you the location of our hideout….." She looked at them with a steely gaze. "If we can't convince you to join the team, then you'll be dead."

Orie and Tatsumi were shook by the threat. Carmine still wasn't fazed. "I-is that supposed to be encouragement or a threat?" Tatsumi asked weakly.

"Pfft, I'd like to see you try," challenged Carmine.

The girl ignored him. "Just give it plenty of thought, alright? And my name's Sheele. Pleasure to meet you three."

Without knowing it, Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi all shared the same thought: these guys are weird.

"What the hell!?" a female voice said from behind them. They turned to see the girl with the pink hair and dress from last night. "Why did you bring these losers back to the hideout?"

"Losers?" spat Carmine. "Why you little-" Before he got a chance to trade fists with the girl, Leone held him back.

"They're one of us now!" chirped Leone.

The girl wasn't convinced. "And did no one think to ask for my opinion?" She stared at the three for a hard minute. Her eyes softened a bit at Orie, but Carmine and Tatsumi were met with hard glares. "I won't allow it," she confirmed. "Maybe the one with the blue hair has a chance, but those two don't have a snowball's chance in hell. It's obvious they're not cut from the same professional cloth as the rest of the group. I mean just look at them."

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Tatsumi shot back.

"You want to die, girl?" threatened Carmine.

Leone chuckled. "Aw, don't let it get to you," she said. "That's Mine's way of saying hello!" The way the girl, whose name was Mine, turned her nose up at them wasn't making their moods any better.

A few minutes later, Leone led them outside. "And this is our training grounds. We go here to practice and blow off some steam. Oh, and look who's here already trying to work up a sweat." She pointed at a tall, well-built guy, practicing with a large spear. He was swinging it around flawlessly and with master precision. "That's Bulat."

With one final swing of the spear, he sent a massive gust of wind along with it. He finally took notice of Leone and the three newcomers standing beside her. "Oh, aren't you the three we picked up the other day?" he said with a friendly smile.

Neither of them recognized him. "Wait, how'd you know about that?" asked Tatsumi.

Bulat finally realized why he asked that. "Oh, I should have known you wouldn't recognize me like this. I was wearing my armor that night." He put down the spear and stuck his hand out. "Name's Bulat, pleasure's mine."

Tatsumi shook it. "Oh and yes, he's gay," added Leone. That immediately made Tatsumi and Carmine jump back a step. Orie giggled a bit at the reaction.

"Now don't give them the wrong idea," said Bulat. "...yet." Tatsumi and Carmine weren't convinced in the least.

A little later, they were led into the forest by a tide pool. Laying on a cliffside was a guy with green hair, a matching overcoat, goggles on top of his head, and donning what looked like string-covered gloves. "Oh ho ho, it's almost time for Leone's bath," he giggle mischievously. "I give anything to get a peek at that smokin' hot body!"

"In that case…." He froze at the voice. Behind him stood Leone. "Why don't you give up two fingers?" Before he even had a chance to say something, Leone squeezed and pulled him down to the ground.

"You never learn, do you?" scolded Leone. "Next time, I'll break your arm." She turned to Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi. "This is Lubbock. As you can see, he's an idiot."

As the sun began to set, Leone started leading them down a shoreline. "Alright….who's left?" she wondered out loud.

"Jeez, how many freaks are in this place?" said Carmine.

"I'd be careful what you say about us "freaks,"" warned Leone. "Besides, someone who can manually change their hair color, eyes and skin color isn't exactly what most people would call "normal" either."

"Tch." Carmine turned away, knowing he lost that argument.

"Anyways," Leone pointed towards a big campfire a short distance away. "The next one's a cutie, boys. Try not to stare. She's stuffing her face over there by the fire."

They walked over to the camp to meet the final member of Night Raid, who was sitting in front of the fire roasting something. "Hey Akame!" greeted Leone. The three recognized the girl from the other night. The one with black hair that nearly took Tatsumi's life. She turned to them while chomping on a bit of meat.

They finally took notice of what was being spit-roasted over the fire. "I-is that a giant bird?" asked Orie.

"Did she kill that thing herself?" added Tatsumi.

"Akame's our resident wild child," explained Leone. "Though, I think Carmine here might give her some competition." That got a slight laugh from Tatsumi and Orie, plus a glare from the man in question.

"Leone, have some," said Akame, still facing the fire. She tossed Leone a giant bird leg behind her. She turned to the three and studied them for a second, giving Tatsumi a closer look out of them. "Well, have you joined us yet?" she asked calmly.

"No," answered them at the same time.

"Then I'm sorry but I won't be sharing any of my dinner with you," responded the assassin. She wasn't met with any regret from her new dinner guests.

Leone walked over to her. "Is it me or is everyone acting a little extra jacked-up today?"

"That's because the boss is back."

"Huh?" inquired Tatsumi. "The boss?"

Leone looked around the fire to see a woman with white hair, a black pantsuit and a metal arm sitting there, smiling with a cigarette burning in her hand.

"Boss!" exclaimed Leone with delight. "Welcome back! Did you bring me anything good?"

"Now why would I do that?" responded the boss. Leone turned her head in confusion. "About one of your most recent assignments," she said, her metal arm starting to tremble. "I was told you completed it three days overdue."

Leone was paralyzed in fear. "CRAP!" She made a run for it, only to be outran and have her neck grabbed by the boss's metal arm.

"When facing a powerful opponent, it is unwise to get caught up in the fun," said Leone's captor as she reeled her in. "Shouldn't you know better than that by now?"

Leone struggled against the boss's grasp around her neck. "O-o-okay! I learned my lesson, now please let go-" Leone's cries were ignored.

The boss turned to the potential recruits. "So tell me about these three," she said.

Leone stood back up and smiled. "That's right, they're gonna be joining us!"

Tatsumi looked at her with disdain. "Huh? I haven't agreed to anything!" he protested.

"Yes, can we please have a say in this ourselves?" said Orie.

"Do they seem promising?" asked the boss.

Leone narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Absolutely."

The boss gave them a steely gaze, studying them for a minute. She got up from her chair and put on her coat. "Akame, grab the others," she commanded. "I want to hear about everything, including the details about these three."

A short time later, the boss gathered everyone in the foyer and sat on her chair. "Thank you everyone," she said. "I think I understand the situation here." She held out her metal hand to Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi. "Carmine Prime, Orie Ballardiae, Tatsumi, how would you three like to be the newest members of Night Raid?"

"You're gonna kill us if we refuse to join, right?" asked Tatsumi.

"I'd like to see them try," challenged Carmine, earning him some disdainful looks from a couple of the other members.

"No, we won't kill you," answered the boss. "But we wouldn't let you leave, either. You would have to remain here and work in our factory. Either way, we won't take your lives, but we do encourage you to join. Your choice."

Tatsumi clenched his palm. He looked down, conflicted in his decision. "I-I just wanted to make a lot of money in the Imperial Capital so I'd be able to save my village from starvation," he explained. "But the Capital wasn't what I thought."

"Tatsumi," said Bulat. "Corruption in the Capital is causing mass poverty all over the countryside. Don't you want to uproot all of that corruption at the source? Like a man would?" Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi all considered his words carefully, though they all had different reasons for doing so.

"Bulat used to be a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Army," explained the boss. "But he joined us when he realized what was really going on in the Capital."

Bulat nodded. "If we don't do something about the scum terrorizing the Capital, then it's never gonna get cleaned up. So it's our job to take out those bastards whenever we get the chance."

Tatsumi wasn't convinced yet. "That's fine, but I don't think you can make much of a difference by eliminating some rotten eggs here and there. I mean, doing things like this won't save places like my village."

The boss smiled. "That's correct. And that's exactly why Night Raid is the perfect fit for you."

"Erm, why's that?"

"There's an anti-Empire group called the Revolutionary Army that has a hideout south of the Capital. They started out small, but they've grown into a rather formidable organization. They needed a separate unit to specialize in covert operations such as recon and assassinating targets. That's why they created us. Night Raid."

Orie thought carefully about the boss's explanation. Assassination work was not her forte nor something she relished the idea of doing, but all of the talk about the Revolutionary Army and Night Raid uprooting corruption and serving for the welfare of others was starting to make her think about her Executor role in the Licht Kreis. Carmine thought about the jerks in the high rankings throwing their weight around and acting like they're better than everyone else. He smirked at the thought of taking them down one sack of shit at a time.

"We're only putting out small fires now," the boss continued. "But when the Revolutionary Army decides to make its move, amidst the chaos we'll head straight for the cause of this mess. The minister."

"So you're gonna…..kill him?" Tatsumi asked.

She nodded. "Only then will our nation truly see change."

Tatsumi looked up at her. "So if our nation had a new start, you really think all the people would be safe and happy again?"

"I am certain of it."

The other members of Night Raid, Carmine and Orie looked at him carefully as he inquired further about his potential role. "I-I love it!" he said. "It's like you guys are taking out the trash. Killing off the bad guys one by one! You're a rogue team of assassins for the sake of justice!" His assumption was met by laughter from everyone in the room but Akame and Orie. Tatsumi blushed. "What? What'd I say?" he cried. "Why's everyone laughing!?"

"Tatsumi," began Leone. "No matter how you describe it, we're still murderers."

"And there's no justice to be found in the way we do things," commented Sheele.

"At any given moment," continued Bulat. "Any one of us could be forced to atone for the blood we've spilled."

"Man, he has no idea!" chided Mine. "It'll be a thousand years before he can handle it."

"Hold on." Mine turned around at the sudden response. "I, uhm…"

"Every team member fights for a different reason," said the boss. "But each bears a strong resolve. Are you prepared to risk your life?"

Tatsumi took a deep breath and faced the boss one more time. "You guys are gonna pay me for this, right?"

She smiled. "Yes. And if you do well, I'm certain you'll make more than enough to save your village."

"Then I'll do it!" confirmed Tatsumi. Fire was in his eyes as he answered. "Please allow me to be a part of Night Raid!"

"You probably won't be going back to them as some hero, you know," warned Mine.

"I know. But that doesn't matter to me as long as they're taken care of."

The boss nodded. "Works for me." She turned to Carmine and Orie. "Now I would like to hear responses from you two. We have all explained as much as we can about our current situation and what we do. What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"I'm in," said Carmine without hesitation. His quick response threw them off a bit.

"My, that was easy," chuckled the boss. "Why the immediate response? You're selling your life to us, you know."

Carmine wasn't discouraged in the slightest. "Where this girl and I come from, I'm used to beating punks that think their shit doesn't stink into the ground. Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing the life in their eyes die when they realize they've screwed with the wrong guy! Besides, I get to assassinate those low-life scumbags and no one's gonna stop me!? Hell yeah I'm in!"

The room was silent. Carmine's answer was fortunate, but his explanation wasn't something to be assured about. "You will assassinate targets assigned to you and those who dare to harm either ourselves or the citizens," explained the boss. "You're not exactly free to do and kill as you please, though you're free to carry out the assignments by any means necessary as long as the assignment is completed and with little to no collateral damage taken."

Carmine shrugged. "Eh, whatever. I'll figure something out. Just let me at 'em and I'll put them so far underground that their heads will be up the devil's ass!"

The boss sighed. "Your bloodlust will need some curbing for sure, however I can appreciate your enthusiasm." Finally, she turned to Orie. "As for you, Orie. I would like to hear your answer. I would also like to know more about you and Carmine since he had mentioned you come from the same place."

Orie looked down. "Neither one of us are from the Central Region, or any of the surrounding countries, so this is very strange for the two of us."

"You're not from here?" asked Lubbock. "Where did you come from then? The Imperial Capital is right in the middle of the Central Region, and that's right in the middle of everything on the continent."

"So about that," interjected Carmine. "We came from somewhere called Kanzakai. Every night on the full moon, these weird shadow monsters called Voids come and attack people. Those who survive the attack take some of those assholes' powers and become these people called In-Births." Some of the members retched at the term "in-birth."

Orie sighed. "Anyways, every Hollow Night, which is the phenomenon created by the night of the full moon, In-Births come to test out their powers, mostly by fighting. An organization that I had previously belonged to was created for the sake of hunting down Voids and protecting citizens from becoming their prey, as well as containing unruly In-Births or those that would cause harm to others." She glared at Carmine when she said that, which was met with a returning glare. "This organization, the Licht Kreis, was my home and family. If they were in this situation, I am sure they would be willing to assist with uprooting the corruption as well as bringing justice to those who would abuse their power in favor of their own pleasure." She stood as proudly and straight as she could. "As the Fifth Executor of the Licht Kreis, I will be willing to assist in your goal to save this country from the evil of the Minister and corrupted officials helping him. Please allow me to join Night Raid!"

"I admire your resolve and your attention to our situation. I would also like to hear more about these "In-Births" and this Licht Kreis at some point in the future." The boss stood up. "Then it's settled. Carmine, Orie, Tatsumi, welcome to Night Raid! You're dismissed for the night." She turned to Akame. "Akame, you're in charge of training them for now."

"Oh give me a break," Carmine said under his breath.

"If either of them become nuisances, kill them." That didn't reassure the new members in the slightest.

"Hmph, no problem," replied Akame.

"Wha? No problem!?" exclaimed Tatsumi.

Leone patted him on the back. "Ha, better do a good job if you want to live!"

The next day, Akame, Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi were in the kitchen, preparing lunch. "I said I want seconds!" demanded Mine. Bulat, Lubbock and Sheele all asked for seconds themselves.

Tatsumi hung his head down in defeat. "I thought I was supposed to be an assassin," he said dejectedly. He peeled more potatoes. "Not a stupid chef."

"Don't look at me," said Akame as she put some berries in her mouth. "I just put food on the plates, okay?"

"Oh I get it. They won't let you cook because you keep sampling the food, am I right?"

Akame's expression never changed. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're not a very good liar…"

On the other end of the kitchen, Orie was manning the stovetop and was sauteing with perfection. Carmine was chopping vegetables haphazardly and a little more excitedly than the average person would be. Tatsumi sighed. "Pretty obvious difference between those two," he commented. "It's hard to believe those two can stand to be around each other."

Akame shook her head. "Something tells me that they weren't together on purpose. Their personalities and mannerisms are too different. I'm more surprised that they haven't tried to kill each other, much less stand to be near the other." She looked at them, who started bickering about Carmine's cutting skills and who can hold a knife better. "Nevertheless, they seem capable from a combat point of view. Their communication is what I'm worried about."

"Aw, look! You're right at home in the kitchen, aren't you Rookie?" said Mine. The four cooks turned to see Mine, Sheele, Lubbock and Bulat standing in the doorway. Mine's grin irritated him.

"Later, Sunshine," said Bulat.

"Bulat?" Then it hit him. "Wait, are you guys going on a mission?" Tatsumi asked.

"Yeah, this one's a special request."

"Wait, shouldn't I come to?"

Mine rejected him. "You stay in the kitchen!" she taunted. "Now you be a good cook and chop up a few cucumbers for me!"

Both Tatsumi and Carmine were visually agitated by Mine's comment, which was followed by her laughing at them. Orie shook her head and kept working. Akame didn't move. "See ya!" said Mine. The four assassins walked out the door.

Akame turned to them. "This will be enough to work with for dinner for now," she said. "Wash up and follow me. We're heading to the pond for more training."

A little while later, the four Night Raid members were in front of a large pond with a waterfall, carrying some wicker baskets. "Today we'll be catching fish for dinner," she said. She slowly started to undress herself, which was met with slight embarrassment from her three trainees. They started to cover their eyes to avoid watching her.

After taking off her dress, she raised an eyebrow. "What seems to be the problem?" she asked. They uncovered their eyes to see her standing in front of them wearing a swimsuit.

Tatsumi took a deep breath. "Thank God it was just a swimsuit," he said.

Akame ignored the comment and started walking towards the edge of the tide pool. "The target is Koga Tuna. See how many you can get."

"Aren't those things really rare and stupidly hard to get a hold of?" asked Tatsumi. Akame didn't answer him. Instead, she jumped and dove into the pond. A second later, three tuna flew over Tatsumi's head and into a basket.

"Damn," said Carmine.

"That was impressive," commented Orie.

Akame popped her head out of the water and took a breath. "First you have to swim all the way to the bottom," she explained. "Then conceal your aura and make your attack. You have to act very quickly. Give it a try."

Carmine ripped his vest off and ran to the edge of the pond. He dove in and made a beeline for the bottom. A few seconds later, five tuna flew towards Tatsumi and Orie's baskets. He swam to the surface and flipped his hair out of his face. "Man, that was awesome!" he said.

Akame was surprised. "Impressive," she said. "What you lack in cooking skills you make up for in fishing."

Carmine shrugged. "It's easy," he explained. "You catch them off-guard and then you scare the shit out of them. Also, shut up. I'm not that bad at cooking!"

Akame turned to Orie and Tatsumi. "Well?" Orie started to walk towards the edge. She peered around nervously at her companions. "Do you plan on swimming with that dress on?" asked Akame.

Orie blushed. "Y-you see….I don't have a swimsuit to use. I'm afraid I have to swim…..in this."

Akame sighed. "Very well then. Just remember that if you're in a survival situation and you have to swim, mobility is more important than your morality. Good luck."

"Hmph, whatever you say!" Tatsumi took off his shirt and dove in.

Some hours later, they made dinner. "So, in the end, our little Tatsumi caught two whole fish, Carmine caught seven and Orie caught three fish and got the wind knocked out of her," said the boss.

Leone looked over at Tatsumi. "Akame said you took off your shirt and said some shit like "I got this!"" she joked.

"It'll take some time," said Akame. She turned to Orie. "More importantly, you need to understand that morality is not as strict when you're an assassin. You didn't do horrible, but you were slowed by your dress."

Orie bowed her head. "It-it'll take some getting used to. Please forgive me."

"Anyway Leone," said the boss. "What did you find out?"

"Here's the deal." Leone put two pictures of burly-looking men down on the table. "The two targets are Ogre of the Imperial Guard and Gamal the Oil Merchant. And according to the client, Gamal has been bribing Ogre. Whenever Gamal gets himself into trouble, Ogre always finds a way to pin the blame on someone else. Her husband fell victim to this and was executed." She put a bag of coins on the table. "Here it is. She paid it all up front."

"I'm amazed she could give us that much," said Tatsumi.

"She smelled sickly," said Leone. "I think she had been selling her body."

"Are you sure she's not lying?" questioned the boss.

"My senses haven't steered me wrong yet, Boss. He's guilty."

The boss lit up a cigarette in solitude. "Then Night Raid accepts this assignment. In the new nation we wish to create, there is no room for his trash. He needs divine punishment."

"We shouldn't have too much trouble with the oil merchant," said Leone. "But I bet you Ogre will be a pain in the ass. Ogre is a demon and very skilled with a sword. Even the hitmen are scared of him. And he's always surrounded by a huge crowd of subordinates. He's never seen alone. He's so careful that Gamal delivers all payments to his personal chambers. But on his days off, he goes drinking on Main Street. Right by the palace."

"Alright, so we'll know when we'll have to strike," said Tatsumi.

"Unfortunately that area is heavily guarded," warned the boss. "We can't send Akame. They already know what she looks like." They all thought about the wanted posters plastered on some of the walls in the city.

Leone raised her hand in the air. "Helloooooo? They don't have any wanted posters of me yet!"

"Can you do it?"

Leone grinned. "Targets like these pukes are the ones I live for!"

"I think we should wait until the others get here," said Akame.

"But at the moment, we still have no idea when they're going to come back, right?" reasoned Tatsumi. Akame nodded. He slammed his hand down on the table. "Then I say we go and take care of this ourselves!"

"Oh? You think you're capable of killing Ogre yourself?" questioned the boss.

"Careful how you answer that," added Leone. "Keep pretending you're a big shot and we might just make you back it up." Tatsumi started to get flustered.

"As you are right now, you can't do it," finished Akame.

"Hey, you know we're still here, right?" said Carmine. "Let us put them down! I've been waiting for some action for a while now."

"Neither of you can either," rejected Akame. Before Carmine could fire off an insult, Akame cut him off. "You have the capability to kill, but you keep too high of a profile and with no regards for working as a team. Unless you learn restraint, you'd be a liability." While Carmine grumbled under his breath, Akame turned to Orie. "As for you, your skills with a rapier are impressive, but your morality is holding you back. In this line of work, morality takes a secondary role to making sure the mission is complete."

Tatsumi's irritation grew. "But I'm an expert swordsman!"

"What I mean is that you can't kill people."

He calmed down and looked at the ground. "I did it once…" He thought back to the mansion when he killed Aria.

"You were blinded by rage that night. Can you kill people under any circumstance without hesitation?"

His face never left the ground. "I don't know. But what if Ogre is sitting here framing another innocent person while the six of us are sitting here and arguing about it? That's why I don't want us to wait! I know what it feels like to lose someone for no good reason, and it's not fun! I don't anyone else to have to feel like that."

"Then it's settled." The boss smothered her cigarette out in the ashtray. "I admire your conviction, Tatsumi. Take them down."

"Now that's what I like to hear!" said Leone. "You got spunk, don'cha?"

"I'd like you three ladies to focus on the oil merchant," commanded the boss. "Tatsumi, you and Carmine will go after Ogre."

"Alright, now THIS is gonna be fun!" exclaimed Carmine.

The three ladies all nodded. Akame got up from her seat and started to walk away. Tatsumi smirked. "See Akame? I can take care of business when push comes to shove!"

Akame stopped but never turned around. "I'll withhold judgment of your ability until you complete the mission and report back." She turned her head towards him. "If you begin your mission with overconfidence and arrogance, you'll die."

"Alright guys, we've got a few hours until nightfall. Carmine, Orie, Tatsumi, I want to show you around the city a bit so you get an idea of where we're working tonight." With that, she took them to Main Street for a little bit of recon before the big night.

A couple hours later, the sun began to set. The team of Akame, Leone and Orie made their move against Gamal. Carmine and Tatsumi headed for Ogre.

In a small mansion, a toad-looking man was walking down the hallway, wiping his hands. "Man, that bathroom will never be the same," he laughed. "Now time to get back to living the dream.

"I've got a better idea!" said Leone. He was grabbed by Thanatos in a crucifix position. Akame rammed her sword through his heart. "Killed by three hot babes? You lucky dog." A second later, Gamal dropped dead. "Now then, I wonder how the noobs are doing with their target."

Somewhere out on Main Street, a giant man with a scarred eye was walking with an air that radiated power. "Man, nothing like finishing up a long day of torture than knocking back a cold one," he said.

"Excuse me, Master Ogre?" a cloaked Tatsumi said. Ogre turned around to look at the kid talking to him. "I have a matter of utmost importance I'd like to discuss with you."

"That so?" growled Ogre. "Let's hear it."

Tatsumi looked around. "We need to speak privately."

"Huh?"

Tatsumi led Ogre into a secluded alleyway.

"Alright, start talking, I want to get home," demanded Ogre.

Tatsumi dropped to his hands and knees. "Please sir, I beg you to let me join the Imperial Guard!" he cried. "I have to earn money to send back to my family in the country!"

Ogre rubbed his head in annoyance. "Ugh, I should have known it was something like that. Follow the procedures like everyone else, jackass." He began to walk away.

"I tried, but they wouldn't even take my application," said Tatsumi, his voice turning calm. His hand was going for his sword.

"That's not my problem," responded Ogre, his tone matching Tatsumi's. He stopped and went for his own sword. "It's not my fault you're a puny little weakling! Give me a good reason why I should deal with a runt like you!"

Carmine walked around the corner of a building. "Hey chumps!" he called out. Both Tatsumi and Ogre turned to him. "You got some real balls stomping on my territory. Get out of here before I make you!"

Ogre narrowed his eyes at him. "Yeah? An edgy little prick like you is gonna make the great Ogre of the Imperial Army leave? Do you have a deathwish or something?"

Before Ogre could pull his sword out on Carmine, Tatsumi stopped him. "Allow me, Lord Ogre. I'll show you what I'm capable of." His drew his sword against Carmine, whose arms sharpened up with blood. "Alright, you leave before I make you leave!" he challenged.

Carmine laughed. "First the meathead and now the meat drippings? Man, you guys are pathetic. Alright, show me what you've got punk!"

Carmine and Tatsumi dashed at each other, making their blades collide. As Tatsumi and Carmine's blades struggled against each other, Tatsumi winked, making Carmine smirk. They broke off. Carmine swung really high at Tatsumi, who ducked and slashed at his opponent. Blood splattered from the slash and Carmine fell dead, or at least it seemed that way.

Tatsumi sheathed his sword and walked back to Ogre. "So, that good enough for you?" he asked.

"I'll admit you made quick work of him," said Ogre. "But he was just a street thug. I beat those up on a daily basis." Carmine struggled to not get up and say something, but he remained still. "Get back to me when you want to face a real threat, will ya?" He walked away, only to find a sword sticking out of his gut a second later. He dropped to the ground.

Tatsumi walked over to Carmine to pick him up. "I'll admit, your blood spike thing really helps make you look dead," he said.

Carmine dusted himself off. "Yeah, just don't think you're gonna get away with me looking like a weakling all the time either," he muttered.

Suddenly, they heard the body of Ogre move. Tatsumi turned around to see Ogre swing his massive sword at him, which he barely had time to block. The impact knocked him a few feet backwards. Carmine went to slash at him, but Ogre kicked him near Tatsumi. "Did you really think you could slay the mighty Ogre!?" the Imperial Guard leader challenged. "Pathetic little snot-nosed brats like you!?" He swung at Tatsumi again, which knocked him back against a wall.

Ogre sighed. "Alright, let me guess. You two are those Night Raid punks that go around killing people in power, right? The weak can squeal all they want, but the strong are the ones that survive in this empire, boys!" He pointed his sword at them both. "Who you deem worthy means nothing! I JUDGE THE FATE OF THE PEOPLE!"

Carmine shot at him with a blood spike. Ogre barely dodged in time. "What the hell are you?" he asked. "You fight with blood, huh? That's cute."

"Heh, sure beats hauling around a hunk of metal," joked Carmine. "And when we're done, the murder weapon won't even be there! Now DIE YOU WORM!"

Ogre bellowed out and charged Carmine. Carmine dodged a vertical slash and went for his neck. He squeezed and Ogre felt some of his blood drain away. Carmine shot a punch at his face, but Ogre ducked under it and punched Carmine hard enough to send him at a wall. Carmine recovered long enough to shoot some more blood at his feet, which confused Ogre.

"Hey, did you forget your glasses at home?" laughed Ogre. "Getting my feet wet won't do you shit!"

"So you think, dumbass." Ogre ceased his laughing long enough to see Carmine raise his fist up. "RISE!" Spikes of blood went through Ogre's feet, pinning him to the ground.

"You little bastard!" cried Ogre. He put his sword behind him right before Tatsumi made contact. He pushed him off and tried to face him the best he could. "Let me guess, that wench of the man I just executed put you up to this, huh?" he said. "I should have picked her off when I had the chance. But you know, I still could! I'll find everyone she knows, bring them up on charges, then torture them to death while she watches! But not before I kill you two!" He took another swing at Tatsumi, to be met with his arms being lopped off.

Tatsumi jumped high in the air. Carmine shot some blood into Ogre's stomach, making more blood spill to the ground. "SPIN!" yelled Carmine. A deadly sawblade of blood rose from the ground and started cutting into Ogre's body horizontally. Tatsumi dropped down and sliced him vertically.

Tatsumi sheathed his sword and started walking out. "Let's go," he said. "The others are waiting for us."

Carmine turned his colors back to normal and followed. "Man, what a drag," he complained. "A guy named Ogre should have been better than that."

Half an hour later, Akame, Leone, Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi were standing in the foyer, giving their reports. She focused on Tatsumi and Carmine. "Well done," she began. "You defeated a powerful adversary on your own. I'm impressed."

Tatsumi's face turned arrogant. "Hear that Akame? We took him down, and not a scratch on me!" Before he got a big head, Akame began tearing off his shirt. What? What the hell are you doing to me!?" he cried.

"Leone, Boss, get Carmine," said Akame. She took off Tatsumi's pants, revealing his boxers, while the boss and Leone stripped Carmine down to the same, irritating him. While the two boys were confused and Orie was trying not to be embarrassed, Akame looked them over thoroughly.

"Thank goodness," said Akame. Carmine and Tatsumi both raised eyebrows. "I've seen people die from infection because they were too proud to report their wounds. It's good neither of you got hurt. Most people don't survive past their first mission."

"Wait, why the hell didn't you strip down her then?" demanded Carmine, pointing at Orie. She blushed and glared at him.

"She was with us," Leone responded. "We know for a fact that she was alright."

Akame smiled. "I'm glad you two survived."

Leone smiled too. "The only reason Akame was so hard on you three was because she was worried about your safety."

"Learning to cook helped with your communication," said the boss. "Hunting taught you basic killing techniques. Did you not realize everything we had you three do was for a very specific reason?"

"I-I guess not," said Orie.

"S-sorry Akame," apologized Tatsumi. "I guess I got the wrong idea."

"It's okay," she responded. "Just keep trying to come back alive."

"Just keep looking after me then, Akame."

Leone was starting to giggle. "Oh my god, this is so adorable and cheesy and the fact that you're almost naked makes it even more ridiculous!"

"Hey, you're the ones who took my clothes off!" retorted Tatsumi.

Carmine put his clothes back on. He looked over at Orie. "Well, guess this assassin thing ain't so bad after all, huh?" he said.

"It's…...not my favorite thing," she replied. "But if it keeps the world safe, then I'll keep doing it as long as I can."

"Well, you three are working with Mine on your next assignment, so I'll expect your best," said the boss.

"Oh no," sighed Orie.

"You're shitting me," deadpanned Carmine.

"Huh?" Tatsumi's exasperation rose. "BUT SHE'S EVEN WORSE!"

Somewhere in the distance, Mine heard something. "I have a bad feeling about this," she said.


	9. Kill The Grudge

The day started with a raised alarm. Someone had found the hideout and began intruding. Night Raid, led by Lubbock, ran to the boss immediately to report the finding. "How many intruders and where?" asked the boss.

"Judging by the reaction of my barrier, I'd say about eight," said Lubbock. "Getting a little close to the hideout if you ask me!"

"If they were clever enough to sniff us out, we should assume they're tribal assassins. Move quickly. Don't let them leave here alive."

Everyone in Night Raid started making a beeline through the forest to find the whereabouts of the mysterious intruders. They started splitting up to find them all. Carmine, Orie, Tatsumi and Bulat were running side by side, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign that they might be around. "Carmine, Orie!" yelled Bulat. "You two go on ahead and break left. Tatsumi and I will break right."

"Understood!" said Orie.

"Damn meathead's giving me orders now," grumbled Carmine.

"Just come on already!" Orie grabbed his hand and started running for their designated direction.

The two In-Births kept running, trying to keep an ear out to listen for anyone lurking in the trees. "INCURSIO!" they heard Bulat yell out in the distance.

"The hell was that?" asked Carmine.

"It sounded like Bulat," replied Orie. "No matter. Let's find these troublemakers are take them down."

Almost on cue, three bandits jumped out of the trees and pounced. Orie barely managed to call Thanatos in time to repel the attacks off of both of them. "Heh, nice timing there, Girly," one of them laughed. "Another second later and you and your boyfriend would have been mincemeat!"

Carmine and Orie looked at each other and then back at the bandits, but with more fury in their eyes. "We're not dating!" they yelled.

"Jeez, and to think I was just going to kill you and be done with it," said Carmine while changing colors. "But that ballsy little comment makes me want to keep you alive to see your guts ripped out too!"

"Gosh, do you have to be so graphic all the time?" scolded Orie. She focused on the bandits again. "You've entered enemy territory. Seeing as how you've seen our location, we can't let you leave here alive. Prepare yourselves!"

The bandits readied their blades. "Then come and get us, Night Raid!" Two of them rushed Orie, who repelled their attacks, albeit with some difficulty. Carmine dashed at the third one, who was trying hard to avoid and block his blades of blood.

"Bastard," Carmine's opponent yelled while blocking more slashes. "What the hell are you? How can you do that!?"

"I'm the guy who's gonna be the last thing you see," chuckled Carmine. "And I can do it because I'm not a weakling like you!" He sent a punch flying towards the bandit's face, which struck with enough force to put him on the ground. Carmine shot a shard of blood into the guys stomach. "SPIN!" he yelled. The bloody saw blade tore the bandit in half, leaving nothing but blood and guts strewn everywhere on their side of the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Orie was having slightly more trouble on her end. She was trying hard to fight off two guys armed with swords of their own. "I want to leave her alive a little longer," said one of them. "I want to have some _fun_ with her later, if you know what I mean, heh heh heh."

Orie blushed and exploded in anger. "That'll be the last thing I'll ever let you say, you pig!" She called Thanatos to push them away from her with its light and had the paladin swing its blade at them full force, slashing them both in half. Blood rained down where they stood.

Carmine walked up to her. "Heh, you're not bad," he said. "Not bad at all."

"I just wish I didn't have to resort to such gory measures as that," she said. "But no man that threatens to "have some fun" with a woman like him deserves to die peacefully." She started walking to the edge of the gore scene. "Let's head back to the others. They should be close to being done themselves." They started for the rendezvous point and left their handiwork to rot.

A few minutes later, they reached the rest of the team. "Hey, good to see you've all made it back in one piece," Bulat said. He also noticed Carmine's changed appearance. "Erm, what's with the hair, eyes and arms, Carmine?" he asked.

"Just something he does," said Orie.

"Come on, don't make it sound like nothing!" complained Carmine. "I do this to scare the people I'm gonna kill!"

"Did it work?"

Carmine shrugged. "Hell if I know. They didn't live long enough to BE scared. HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Erm, right." Bulat shrugged off Carmine's insane laugh. "Anyways, based on you still being alive and with no injuries, I can tell you kids have some talent."

"The intruders have been disposed of," said Akame. "Let's head back to base and report our status." The assassins made their way back to the hideout to tell the boss what happened and how many there were.

* * *

The next day, Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi were waiting out in the hallway in front of the foyer. Sheele started walking down the hallway when she noticed the three standing there. "Is something the matter?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh, hey Sheele," grumbled Tatsumi. "I'm fine."

"We've been waiting to train with Mine today," said Orie. "But she seems to be taking a rather long time to get ready. She hasn't come out of her room once."

"I've heard of fashionably late, but this is really stupid," said Carmine.

"Yeah, well Mine does have a habit of sleeping in," Sheele reasoned. She opened up the door to the foyer. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I'll go wake her up now."

"Wait, let them do it," said the boss, who happened to be standing behind the door they opened.

"Wait, why us!?" exclaimed Carmine. "Why do we have to go wake that half-stack up?"

"You're her subordinates for today. Waking up your supervisor is part of an assassin's job."

Carmine and Tatsumi looked at each other, annoyed. "Alright, rock, paper, scissors to see who gets her?" said Tatsumi.

"You're on," replied Carmine.

"One, two, three, shoot!" Carmine threw scissors and Tatsumi threw paper. Tatsumi hung his head in defeat. "B-b-best two out of three?" he asked weakly.

"Get going, loser." Carmine pointed towards Mine's room. "I'm not gonna wait around all day and you lost."

Tatsumi sighed and headed towards Mine's room. "I wasn't aware we had that rule," questioned Sheele.

"Wait, what?" asked Orie. "Then why-"

"Consider it another test," the boss said mischievously. A minute later, they all heard Mine scream and a sonic boom sounded from the top of the hideout. "And assuming Tatsumi's still alive after that, it looks like he passed."

They took some seats at the table. Sheele opened up her book, the boss lit another cigarette, Orie began cleaning her rapier and Carmine put his head down and started sleeping. Another half a minute later, more booms were heard, waking Carmine up and making him fall backwards on his chair. "Man, she's really going all-out, isn't she?" said Sheele.

The boss smiled. "You three are in for a long day."

An hour later, Carmine, Orie, Tatsumi and Mine were all walking down Main Street. The three trainees got glimpses of the people they passed and noticed they looked miserable. Tatsumi started to fall behind, so the other three stopped. "Hey, pervert!" called Mine. "Hurry up! What's the hold-up, country boy? Let's move it! Chop chop!"

"Pervert?" asked Orie, blushing at the comment. "I feel like this needs some context."

"Aren't you supposed to be one of my faithful servants for the day?" Mine asked Tatsumi.

"Servant!?" he challenged

"That's what the boss said."

"Noooooo, I'm just training under you. There is a difference, you know!"

Mine turned from him. "Yeah, and the operative word there is "under." Come on! We don't have a lot of time!"

"You got some real nerve calling us "servants," you know," barked Carmine.

Mine got in his face and pointed at him. "And you got some real nerve talking down to your superior. See? I can play that game too."

"Why you little-" Orie bonked him on the head, leaving a bump. Rubbing his head, Carmine turned to Orie. "Oh, come on! Not you too!"

"Thank you, Orie," said Mine. "The puppy needed to heel a bit."

"I hate her," muttered Carmine.

"What was that?"

"I said keep walking! I want to get this over with already!"

They walked a little longer. Tatsumi started to get a good look at some of the depressed people they were passing by and sensed a lingering fear of dread. "Hey Mine," he said. "Don't these people look unhappy to you?"

Her face was neutral. "They live in fear of the government. And the economy sucks. Almost everyone is either at rock bottom or on their way down. You wouldn't be that chipper either."

They passed an alleyway and heard some voices. They turned to see two thugs beating up a little kid. "Go ahead and cry! No one's listening!" one of them said.

"Hey, what are you two do-" Tatsumi was cut off by Mine.

"Shouldn't you two jerks be picking on someone your own size?" she spat.

"You gonna do something about it?" challenged one of the thugs.

"It's fine," the other one said. "This little girl is a refugee from outside the country. I mean, she could turn out to be a traitor any second."

"So could I." The thugs backed off of Mine. "Tatsumi…"

"Got it." Tatsumi cut their belts off of their pants, making them drop around the thugs' ankles. Carmine was on the ground laughing and Orie was trying to stifle a giggle. They ran down the alley, trying to cover whatever dignity they could.

Mine began to walk out of the alley. "Thank you for saving me," the little girl said.

"Don't thank me," said Mine, not bothering to turn around. "Just grow up strong so you can protect yourself, okay?"

A little while later, something nagged at Tatsumi. "Hey Mine, is it alright to be walking around in broad daylight like this?" he asked.

"Huh? Why not? They've only identified four of us." She pointed towards the wanted posters, which only showed Akame, Bulat, Sheele and the boss, whose name was apparently Najenda.

He took a closer look at Bulat's wanted poster, which showed a different-looking man than the Bulat they knew. "Is that really Bulat?" Orie asked.

"Yep," confirmed Mine. "That picture was from his army days. He changed his look when he joined Night Raid."

Tatsumi took another look. "Wait, that's BRO!?" he exclaimed. "Great, another image to haunt me in my dreams."

Mine ignored his gripes. "Anyways, the boss gave the four of us this mission because we can walk around freely."

"Great, so who are we taking down today?" asked Carmine, punching his fists together.

"Easy, Captain Bloodlust, we're not taking anyone down today." Carmine crossed his arms and pouted. "Now let's begin our retail investigation!"

"I don't know what that means, but woohoo!" cheered Tatsumi.

"Wait, retail investigation?" inquired Orie. "What exactly are we investigating?"

Mine shrugged and smiled. "Oh you know, what sales are where, which food is the best, things like that. One of the most important things you can find out, really."

Orie smiled. "Okay, I think I'll be happy to assist with your "mission," Mine. Let us begin at once!"

Tatsumi rolled his eyes. "I'll never understand what's up with girls and shopping," he scoffed.

"Just shut up and follow them," chided Carmine. "I just want to get this over with."

The rest of the day was spent shopping and sampling sweets from the shops around town. Mine and Orie were enjoying looking at the sales and picking out things to wear. Carmine kept standing around, bored out of his mind, and Tatsumi was stuck carrying the purchases.

A few hours later, the four stopped at a sweet shop and were sitting at a table, eating and drinking. "Ah, what a day!" gushed Mine. "Nothing makes me happier than a brand new pink dress!"

Orie was looking over her new dress, which was a lighter blue and without the Licht Kreis emblem on it. "I'll admit, it is nice to change into different clothes after wearing the same ones for a few days straight," she agreed. She looked over at Carmine, whom she convinced to buy new clothes as well. "Don't you think, Carmine?"

"Yeah, whatever," he said. He was now wearing black jeans with the chain wallet attached, a short-sleeved black jacket and a blood red tank top. "Not like I needed them."

"Oh come on, it's better than smelling like a sewer rat all the time," said Mine. "Besides, isn't it nice to just have a day to goof off?"

"Yeah, whatever," replied Tatsumi.

"Well, the mission's complete!" cheered Mine.

"What the hell!?" Tatsumi slammed his hand on the table. "We did nothing but shop all day!"

Mine slapped him, knocking him out of his chair. "Oh get over it! Have you already forgotten that I'm above you!? Good servants don't question their masters!" She started stomping on Tatsumi. "You should be grateful that I deemed you worthy enough to carry my bags!"

Tatsumi pushed her foot aside and stood up. "Yeah!? Well you're not gonna be my boss forever you know! Plus nothing we did counts as training!"

"Whaaaaat? You think you can just waltz in here and think you can be on my level?" Mine turned from him. "You do seem pretty confident in your skills as a swordsman, but you haven't seen nearly as much combat as me."

Tatsumi looked down. "I get it," he said. "I'm new. There's going to be some things about this job that I don't get yet. But still. I am going to keep on fighting! For Sayo and Ieyasu!"

Orie looked over at Mine. "While I don't disagree with him having less combat experience than you," she said. "You have to see that the fire in his eyes is enough to prove that he's willing to try."

Mine sighed. "Akame and Bulat have high hopes for you three. But I have my doubts. Each of you have your own problems that you need to overcome if you're going to be any help to us in Night Raid." She turned around to face them. "What we did today doesn't seem like training, but not only did we spend some time in the city in public eye, you three got more comfortable with blending into crowds and learning the layout of the area. That information is vital if you're going to be able to find ways of escaping or to formulate strategies."

Carmine noticed there were some people running in the same direction, looking exasperated. "Hey, the hell's with them?" he asked.

"There's an execution," explained Mine. "They're pretty common around here."

"Execution?" asked Orie.

"I want to take a look," said Tatsumi.

The four took off for the scene of the execution. What they found were five people bound on crucifixes, a few still alive but struggling. "H-h-how can they do this to people!?" cried Orie. "This is absolutely cruel!"

Mine kept her head down. "This is the minister's doing. He supports these kinds of cruel punishments. Ultimately he put the child emperor on the throne so he could have control."

"Sick bastard," growled Carmine. "Even I hate it when someone tries to make suffering a public thing."

"That's rich coming from a nutjob like you," Mine insulted.

Carmine glowered at her. "Listen, Pinky, I love to make my prey suffer, but I ain't gonna put it on display. That's for tiny-dick jackasses who feel the need to make themselves look good when they know that they ain't shit."

"Now I know why you hated Amnesia so much," giggled Orie.

Tatsumi and Mine looked at her. "Who?" they both asked.

Carmine shrugged. "Nah, I just hated Amnesia because I hate people that have to rely on working with each other to survive. The Paradox bitch was one of those people I was talking about."

"Then why the hell are you in Night Raid!?" demanded Mine.

"'Cause we're stuck with nowhere to go and I get to kill shit-grinning assholes who think they're better than everyone. I don't HAVE to work with anyone, I just happen to be a part of you guys. It's a win-win."

"I think you're better off just leaving it at that," deadpanned Orie, trying to calm everyone down.

Tatsumi nodded. "Yeah. Now are we done here or are we going on another shopping spree?"

"Fine, fine, we're done here," Mine said, rolling her eyes. "Let's get going."

* * *

The next day, Najenda called everyone in to assign a mission. "Night Raid has a new mission. This time, our target is a distant relative of Minister Honest. Iokal. He's been using the minister's name so that he could kidnap innocent women and then beat them to death. Iokal also has five mercenary guards that are equally guilty. I'm counting on you guys."

That night, Night Raid started dashing through the forest to take out Iokal. Tatsumi and Mine split up with the rest of the group while everyone else waited to take on the mercenaries. "Alright, so here's the plan," explained Akame. "Mine and Tatsumi are already on the way to find a place to take out Iokal. As soon as you hear Mine take the shot, we make our move on the mercenaries. No doubt they would be coming for the sound of where the shot sounded."

As soon as they heard Mine fire Pumpkin, they assumed Iokal was shot down. They heard men running towards them through the trees. Four of them stopped right in front of Night Raid. "Wow, how nice of you guys to save us the trouble of hunting you down!" said Leone, cracking her knuckles.

"You're guilty of assisting Iokal," Akame calmly said. "You need to die."

The four mercenaries steeled themselves and got ready for battle. Night Raid did the same. Leone charged one of them and started swinging at him. Akame took another one. Carmine and Orie took a third. Sheele and Bulat took the fourth. Lubbock stayed back to snare them if he could.

The mercenary facing Bulat and Sheele jumped at them and went for a punch on the latter. Sheele blocked his fist with her scissors, Extase. The mercenary saw the spear Bulat was trying to stab him with and jumped off of Extase. He tried sending a kick at Bulat's head, but he grabbed the mercenary's leg and threw him to the ground, cracking a bit of it in the process. "Sheele!" yelled Bulat. Sheele opened up her scissors, ready for the kill. Bulat threw the mercenary at her and Sheele cleaved him in half.

Akame's opponent tried to put pressure on her by switching between high and low attacks, but Akame kept evading backwards and to the side. She slashed at him, which he barely managed to roll out of the way. He tried to kick her legs out from under her, but Akame jumped up and plunged her sword into his stomach. The curse slowly took hold and the mercenary laid motionless.

The mercenary fighting the In-Births were having a harder time trying to predict their movements. Carmine was swinging wildly and rushing him down and Orie was defending everything he sent her way. He decided to switch his moves on either one. He completely abandoned Orie and went after Carmine. "Alright you little shit," said the mercenary to Carmine. He dodged a slash from Carmine and took him down to the ground. He grabbed Carmine's throat and began to squeeze with both hands. "I'm about sick of you already. She can wait." Carmine tried to say something, but he was busy trying not to get his windpipe crushed.

"Don't discount me as a threat yet!" yelled Orie. She ran at him and got ready to thrust her spear into his torso. He turned around and punched her away. Orie slid on the ground, trying to regain her balance.

"Sit down, Lady!" yelled their assailant. "I've got work to do."

The loosened grip gave Carmine enough air to realize what was going on. He put his own hand on the mercenary's throat and began to squeeze. His victim felt the blood drain from his face and he fell over, disoriented. While Carmine was trying to get back to his feet, Orie took the opportunity to drive her rapier into the mercenary's head. His skewered head fell to the ground, motionless.

She turned to Carmine. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Carmine said while rubbing his throat. "Bastard's got one hell of a grip."

Leone was just finishing her own fight with her opponent. She smashed his face in so hard that it shattered his mask to pieces. "Oh man that felt so incredible!" she squealed.

"That was a rather pleasant challenge, wasn't it?" added Sheele.

"Pleasant, right, sure," coughed Carmine.

Akame looked around and noticed a crucial detail. "Wait, something's not right. I thought the boss said we were supposed to kill five."

"Aw man, I didn't get to kill anybody!" complained Lubbock.

Leone smirked. "Too bad, Lub! I'm docking your pay!"

Lubbock grew exasperated. "WHAAAAAA? You can't do that!"

"Huh? Wanna bet?"

Akame's eyes grew wide. "He's after Tatsumi and Mine!"

"Not on my watch he ain't!" yelled Leone. The seven ran as fast as they could to where Mine's shot came from and followed the trail Tatsumi and Mine left.

"Hey, I hear voices!" said Orie.

"Yeah, they sound close," confirmed Akame. "And it sounds like a third voice si with them. It has to be the missing mercenary."

They heard another blast, presumably from Mine. Based on the sound, they knew they were really close. They eventually got to a clearing which showed a dead mercenary and Tatsumi and Mine arguing with each other.

"I….guess there was no need to rush all the way over here, was there?" said Leone, trying to keep the confusion out of her voice.

Akame smiled. Despite their arguing, Tatsumi and Mine still came out alright in the end. She turned to the others. "The mission's complete," she announced. "Let's return to the base and report to the boss." Everyone else nodded and made for the hideout.


	10. Kill The Imperial Arms User

Before they were scheduled to help cook breakfast, Carmine and Orie were called by Najenda for a short meeting. They sat at the table in the foyer to discuss the details. "The reason I called you both here today is because I want to discuss more about what you two had mentioned a couple of days prior," she began. "Something related to In-Births, Voids and something called the "Hollow Night." I might have some information that could be useful, however I won't know for sure unless you explain what you know."

Orie cleared her throat. "Forgive me for not knowing every detail of the story, but I will do my best to explain."

"Just tell me what you can," said Najenda.

"From what my organization had taught me when I was a small child, about a thousand years ago, a small village welcomed a mysterious traveller into their village. Despite obviously being starved, he had only asked for food once. A couple of days later, in repayment for their generosity, he gathered the villagers together to show them some magic. He made a doll dance and explained the power was something called "existence," or EXS for short. Villagers were terrified of his powers at first, but he explained he could give them the powers as well. One boy stepped forward and asked for the powers. This man slapped the boy on the back and he fell unconscious. Before the villagers could get angry with the man, the boy woke up and felt different. He tried using his powers, but could only rustle some tree branches. The man said that over time, his powers would get stronger. Curious, the other villagers asked for the powers to be bestowed upon them. Eventually, the villagers welcomed the man, who was now known as the Hollow God, into their village permanently. However, a few days later, he had simply vanished, never to be seen again."

"Why haven't I heard any of this before?" asked Carmine.

"Likely you haven't inquired too much about EXS apart from becoming an In-Birth and gaining some powers, correct?" Carmine's grumbles confirmed Orie's suspicion.

"Now I'd like to know more about In-Births and EXS," said the boss. "So far our information seems to be running parallel with each other."

Orie took a few seconds to remember the details correctly. "The Hollow Night appears every time on the night of the full moon at a certain area. Those people who are within the area during the Hollow Night's appearance enter the Void's realm. Normal people who end up getting caught in the Hollow Night usually become the Void's prey, only some awaken as In-Births.

People outside the realm of the Hollow Night cannot see what happens within. Likewise, the people within the Hollow Night cannot view what happens in the real world. All electrical devices are also rendered useless within the Hollow Night.

During a Hollow Night, if a person gets bitten by a Void, it consumes the person's soul and infects their body with the Void's common ability to manipulate EXS. If a person can withstand their sanity during all this, they'll be fully awakened as an In-Birth.

In-Births have access to the Void's common ability, Materialization. It allows an In-Birth to give EXS some sort of unique shape. This is what's usually referred as an EXS ability. In-Births through EXS also obtain enhanced physical abilities, which may be in order for their bodies to handle their given powers.

The EXS abilities are proportional to the wound the person received from the Void - the bigger the wound, the stronger the powers. Although, the bigger wound increases the chances of turning into a Void.

The Hollow God I had mentioned is what we would call "the first In-Birth." It is unknown how he had gotten to become one nor do I know the details of how Voids came to be, however for the past thousand or so years, In-Births and Voids have been living synonymously and have been fighting each other since."

Najenda nodded. "From what I had gathered from your information, I do believe that my theory might be solid enough to explain." Carmine and Orie's ears perked up. "Tell me, are you two familiar with imperial arms?"

"The hell are those?" asked Carmine. "Sounds like a weapon or something."

"Some are, and some aren't." Najenda stood up and grabbed a book from a bookshelf. She sat back down and started flipping through pages. "Over a thousand years ago, the first emperor of the empire gathered magicians, alchemists, biologists, any and all great minds from all the corners of the planet to his court. In an attempt to preserve his legacy and protect his prosperous nation, prior to the current situation we have of course, he had these brilliant minds pool their combined knowledge and pair it with his resources. The end result ended in forty-eight artifacts we know as imperial arms."

"Could you tell us more about these imperial arms?" asked Orie.

"I will tell you more about them some other time, but this is more important. Five centuries ago, about half of them were lost in a civil war. Some before then. Which brings me to an interesting theory I have, which I am slowly being convinced is correct based on your explanation." She flipped to a page in the book that showed a blackish monster along with some information written around it. "As you are probably aware, we have these monsters called dangerbeasts. They vary in sizes, danger levels and abilities. Roughly a thousand years ago, there were these shadow monsters that seemed invisible to people and were devoured by them, only to turn into human forms of those monsters. The corrupted humans were quickly slain and these monsters were classified as various levels of dangerbeast.

However, one man was attacked by these monsters and still managed to stay human, or at least he appeared to be. To add to that, he was able to see the monsters himself. Believing that he could provide some help to the emperor, he was willing to share whatever knowledge he had about his newfound powers and how he could see the monsters. In exchange for the man's knowledge and some essence of the monster, the emperor was able to create an imperial arm that could banish these creatures to another realm, known as Shadow Banishment: Demon Hunter."

"Heh, so this thing could send those monsters somewhere else then, huh?" asked Carmine. "You telling us that the emperor guy sent the Voids to us and that was it?"

Najenda shook her head. "Not exactly. This man used Demon Hunter to find every shadow creature, which I'm guessing is this Void you speak of, to another realm in an effort to protect the empire from suffering any more of their attacks. However, in an attempt to make sure no one else would make contact with the Voids or become like him, he ordered the emperor to use Demon Hunter to send him to the realm he sent these Voids to and then hide the imperial arms so that no one could ever interact with them again. If my theory is correct, not only did the Voids and this Hollow Night seem to be in your realm, but this man happens to be your Hollow God and he was turned into an In-Birth."

Carmine and Orie had their mouths dropped open. "Wait, THIS is where they came from!?" exclaimed Carmine. "Then how the hell did we come here?"

"That I'm not sure about," said Najenda. "Perhaps you interacted with something related to the Voids and this EXS and it brought you back to their origins. Far-fetched, but their origins here leave very few possibilities to discredit."

Orie thought back. "Hold on. Carmine, do you remember when you opened that door after we fought Paradox?"

"Yeah, what about it?" said Carmine. "A bunch of darkness and EXS poured out of it and swallowed us. What does that….have….to…." He looked at Najenda. "No effing way."

"It seems the massive amount of EXS and darkness sent you back to the origin somehow," said Najenda. "Very strange how it would have worked that way, but here you are."

"Wait, if we came here, then doesn't that mean that bitch Hilda is here too?" asked Carmine. "She got swallowed up with us. Plus I don't know how far that darkness stuff reached."

Orie grunted. "I hadn't considered that possibility. It's certainly possible, but I hadn't sensed any other In-Birth activity around the area. Maybe we're not close enough to sense anyone else."

The boss lit up a cigarette. "Anyways, from what I gather, if we were to find Demon Hunter, and assuming it is still in working order, we may be able to send you two back."

Orie was overjoyed. Carmine however, wasn't as thrilled. Orie took notice and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?" she asked. "I'd think you would be happy about going back to Kanzakai."

Carmine shook his head. "Why would I want to go back to a place where all I do is fight losers and I only get to use my powers during a Night? Here, I actually have a good reason to kick some ass and I have all the EXS I want thanks to those Voids being here before. Seems pretty pointless to go back there if you ask me."

"But don't you want to live like how you did back at home?" reasoned Orie. "Go to school? See your friends? Your family?" Every single thing she was saying was making Carmine angrier.

He got up and glared at her. "You don't know shit about me or what I want," he growled. He began to walk away.

"Carmine, wait!" cried Orie. "What did I say to-"

"Get away from me!" he snapped. He left the room, leaving the boss and a confused and sad Orie alone.

"What did I say," wondered Orie.

"Probably just needs some time to blow off some steam," said Najenda. "Nevertheless, it would probably be a good idea to talk to him at some point. That's for later though. Akame should be expecting you two for breakfast."

* * *

After Akame, Tatsumi, Carmine and Orie made breakfast, them and Leone showed up to eat. They had made croquettes and rice, albeit Carmine was quiet for most of it. "Man, that hit the spot!" said Leone.

"Oh God, my poor stomach," said Tatsumi, patting his stomach. He noticed two untouched bowls across the table from him. "Wait, are Mine and Sheele still in bed?"

"Yeah, they always sleep this late." Akame grabbed both bowls and began devouring the contents of them in only a few seconds.

Everyone else was stunned. "I just witnessed the speed of a true assassin," said Tatsumi in awe.

"Where does she put it all?" asked Orie.

Leone looked over at Carmine's half-eaten bowl. "Yo Carmine, you alright? You ate like half of your food."

He pushed his bowl aside and got up. "I'm not hungry," he said softly. He walked away, leaving his bowl for Akame to drain.

"What's up with him?" asked Tatsumi. "He's been like this all morning."

Orie looked down. "I said something about going back home and Carmine responded badly when I asked him why he didn't want to. I don't know what I said, but he's been in a bad mood ever since."

Leone put a hand on her back. "Hey, don't sweat it! He'll be good to go later, I'm sure of it!" Orie gave a sad smile, but she wasn't fully convinced.

Sheele, half-asleep, walked into the kitchen. She woke up when she noticed her bowl was empty. "What happened to my breakfast?" she asked.

Everyone looked at each other and got up from the table. "No idea," they all said nonchalantly and walked out of the kitchen, leaving a confused Sheele in their wake.

* * *

Later that night, Najenda called everyone into the foyer to discuss another assignment. Your next target is the serial killer everyone is talking about," she began. "He appears at night and decapitates people, seeming at random. Right now, the number of victims is unknown."

"I'm pretty sure a third of the people he killed were guards. Must be strong."

"No doubt about it," agreed Lubbock. "Definitely sounds like Headhunter Zanku's work."

Tatsumi turned to him. "Huh? Who's Zanku?"

Mine raised an eyebrow. "Wow, you really don't know? You really are from the sticks, aren't you?"

"S-sorry, but I don't think I've ever heard of him either?" admitted Sheele.

Mine put her hand to her face. "Seriously? You probably just forgot, Sheele."

"So what's the deal with this headhunter guy anyways?" asked Carmine.

"It's worse than you can imagine," began Mine. "Headhunter Zanku used to be the executioner at the biggest prison in the empire. The minister orders a lot of decapitations. Over and over, day in and day out, and one by one, Zanku chopped off their heads as they begged for their lives. Over the years it became an addiction. And now he can't stop."

"That's enough to drive anyone crazy," said Tatsumi.

Mine nodded. "And eventually killing prisoners wasn't enough anymore, so Zanku took it to the streets."

"Zanku disappeared shortly after a subjugation force was organized to catch him," added Bulat. "I never thought he would appear in the city."

"Then what are we waiting for!?" shouted Tatsumi. "Let's take this bastard out!"

Bulat put a hand on his head and calmed him. "Easy, Tiger."

"Yeah, but-"

"Zanku's also equipped with an imperial arms he stole from the warden a few years ago. We better travel in teams of two," Bulat leaned in close. "In case it's a rough ride." Tatsumi's eyes faltered uncomfortably.

Mine turned to the boss. "By the way, do we have any idea which imperial arms he might be fighting with?"

"No, we're still looking into that," said Najenda with a shake of her head.

"Not about to reveal his hand then," wondered Leone. "That's annoying."

"So, uh, what is an imperial arms anyways?" asked Tatsumi, only to be met with Akame's sword being inches away from him.

"Something like this," she said.

"That's….not that helpful," said Tatsumi, still shaken by the draw of the sword.

Orie turned to Najenda. "Yes, I seem to remember saying something about imperial arms when you had talked to us about Demon Hunter. Could you tell us more about these things?"

"Very well then, let's bring you three up to speed." Najenda folded her hands together. "A thousand years ago, the first emperor who built the great empire was deeply troubled. He was met with the trouble of finding a way to protect his empire for future generations. He knew that he would die someday, but he knew that weaponry and armor could last generation after generation. Therefore, he decided that he would create weapons and armor that would be able to protect his empire then and for every generation thereafter. He gathered materials from S-class dangerbeasts and rare metals such as orichalcum. Artisans from around the world were summoned to help him. The emperor's wealth and power allowed him to forge forty-eight weapons. A feat that would be impossible today. He called them the "imperial arms." Each one are equipped with amazing abilities, and some are able to wipe out entire armies. Ministers who used the imperial arms were quite successful on the battlefield."

Najenda looked at Carmine and Orie. "However, a civil war caused nearly five hundred years ago caused nearly half of them to be scattered across the land. And that's where it all began. Demon Hunter is one of these imperial arms that had been scattered. The whereabouts are unknown."

"Wait, what's Demon Hunter?" asked Leone. "First time I've heard of it."

"I'll explain more after I finish this explanation," said the boss. She looked at Akame. "The one-hit killer, Murasame. When someone is cut by this sword, a poisonous curse enters the body and kills within seconds. There is no antidote"

She turned to Leone. "Hundred-beast king transformation, Lionelle. This belt gives the wearer all the strength and swiftness of a wild animal. It also enhances the sense of smell, making it perfect for recon."

Next was Mine. "The adventurous bunker, Pumpkin. A gun that fires mental energy in the form of a shockwave. The more danger its wielder is in, the more deadly it becomes."

She looked at Bulat. "The demon armor, Incursio. A suit of armor with impregnable defense. Wearing it causes such great strain that any normal person who attempts to put it on will die."

Lubbock was next. "The protean, Cross Tail. A string-based imperial arms that can be used to set traps and barriers, as well as attack enemies directly. It's just as versatile and dangerous as the name suggests."

Lastly, was Sheele's explanation. "The shears of creation, Extase. A giant pair of scissors sharp enough to cut anything in half. They are also strong enough to be used defensively."

Najenda shifted her focus back to Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi. "Some imperial arms also have trump cards. Incursio maximizes the abilities of the beast used to create it, making its user become temporarily invisible. Most importantly, the imperial arms have all followed one iron-clad rule since their inception. These weapons are so incredible that whenever two of them clash, it always ends in death. Therefore, if two imperial arms users choose to fight, one of them will definitely perish."

"So what is this Demon Hunter thing you mentioned?" asked Tatsumi.

Najenda explained everything Carmine and Orie had talked about that morning. Voids, EXS, In-Births, the Hollow God, the origins of the Voids being in this realm, Carmine and Orie's arrival, the imperial arms created from the materials of the Void and the Hollow God's hand in creating it before his departure. "Therefore, while our goals as Night Raid take priority over all else, I would ask that you keep your eyes and ears open about the whereabouts of Demon Hunter," said Najenda. "Carmine and Orie are still a part of Night Raid and I expect them to assist us as part of Night Raid. However, I would like to send them back to where they had come from if it is at all possible."

"You guys have some weird vocabulary though," retched Lubbock. "An In-Birth? Man that sounds all sorts of wrong."

"I guess it's not all bad though," said Leone. "After all, we don't have to deal with those Void things hunting down people in the empire and infecting them."

"Nevertheless, I had finally figured out why we could use our powers despite there not being a Night," said Orie. "The origins of the Voids being here must have left behind the EXS they possessed, therefore we can still use our powers regardless."

"We still have to deal with that bitch Paradox though," said Carmine. "Something tells me that she's still hiding around here if she got swallowed up with us. And MAN am I gonna love finishing her off when I see her!"

"We'll keep our eyes open for any sign of this Paradox woman you speak of," said Najenda. "But for right now, we have the mission to discuss. We know Zanku has an imperial arms. While mutual death is a possibility, mutual survival is clearly not."

Lubbock pulled a string and put it in front of Tatsumi's neck. "Uh-oh, looks like we've revealed way too much to let you out of here now," he joked. "So unless you want to die, I guess you're just stuck with us for life."

"U-uh..yeah," nervously answered Tatsumi.

"That's a good thing, Tatsumi," said Leone. "It means the boss considers you a part of the team now!"

"Oh come on!" complained Tatsumi. "You guys are giving me a hard time when they get off scot-free!?"

"What's the point?" scoffed Mine. "If we can find this Demon Hunter thingamajig, then they leave. You're stuck with us no matter what." She shot a look at Carmine. "Besides, blood-boy over here is a walking comedy show anyways."

"Screw you, half-pint," muttered Carmine.

"What was that!?" Mine and Carmine started getting into each other's faces.

"Alright, you two can stop that." Everyone's eyes shifted to the boss again. "While it's true Night Raid is lacking in numbers, we make up for it with our individual abilities. I believe we're the heart of the revolution."

"Wait, what about me?" asked Tatsumi. "Do I get one?"

"What? You really think we have a weapon that we can just give you?" chided Mine.

"Huh? You don't?"

Najenda laughed. "If the opportunity arises, I am sure you'll be getting your own soon enough. I am sure the same opportunity will come for you two as well."

Orie looked at her rapier. "I'm not sure I can find something to replace my Ruler with though," she said. "I've used it for as long as I can remember. It's also what I use to call Thanatos."

"Is that the knight thing's name?" asked Carmine. Orie nodded. "Well, I sure as hell ain't replacing my blood spike. Can't find a better weapon than this."

Najenda stood up. "Nothing further at this time. Now let's go punish this scumbag. Move out!"

* * *

That night, Night Raid made their move on Zanku. They split up into four teams: Tatsumi and Akame, Carmine and Orie, Bulat and Leone, and Mine and Sheele. The two In-Births were walking down a couple of main streets to get a read on him. Orie noticed Carmine was being unusually distant though. "S-so," she nervously began. "Zanku's around here somewhere. Do you hear anything?"

"Nope," said Carmine flatly.

Orie sighed. "Erm...are you hungry? We can stop and get-"

"Nope." Same response.

Orie took a deep breath. "I don't know what I said earlier, but are you still mad at me?"

Carmine stopped. "Just keep looking for this asshole. Being with you is already pissing me off enough as it is."

Orie walked in front of him to face him. "Listen, I don't know what I did to irritate you this morning, but can you please tell me something? I want to try and make it ri-"

Carmine leaned in really close, eyes leering into her. "Let's just say I've got nothing to go back to compared to here. Happy?" He pulled off from her and kept walking.

Orie hung her head and kept walking. Suddenly, she heard some blades clash. "Carmine!" she called. "I heard something!"

"Then lead on already!" spat Carmine. "I want to put this punk down and go home!" They ran for the sound of the clashing blades, hoping that they found Zanku.

Soon, they came to an open plaza to find Tatsumi battling a large man with a grin with far too many teeth, an overcoat, two blades on his arms and a green eyeball placed in the center of his head. Tatsumi looked like he was on the losing side and he dropped to his knees, bleeding badly. The man turned to the two of them. "Oh? Looks like some more prey saved me the trouble of hunting them down!" he said. "How delightful!"

"That's my line, asshole!" yelled Carmine. He changed colors. "I'm the-"

"Predator, not the prey?" Carmine shook. The man laughed. "I already explained it to this brat, but it sounds like you may not know me. I am the one known as Headhunter Zanku."

"That eyeball must be your imperial arms then," said Orie.

"Oh my, what a perceptive one we have here!" said Zanku. He looked at Carmine and frowned. "Seems like you have quite the graphic imagination there on how to kill people."

A vein popped into Carmine's head. "Gah, just shut up! You don't-"

"Know anything about you?" Zanku laughed. "The imperial arm's name is Spectator. This imperial arms has blessed me with five special gifts. One of them is insight, meaning I can read your every thought! You may have thought you were hunting me down, when you didn't realize I was doing the hunting! My farsight helped me find this whelp, who's bleeding profusely I might add."

Orie stood in a battle stance. "Headhunter Zanku, for your crimes against the people of this nation, I-"

"Sentence me to death, prepare yourself, blah blah blah." Orie grunted. "Your monologue seems too practiced to sound profound, you know? How many times are you going to-" Orie tried to charge him and thrust her rapier through his heart, only to be swatted to the ground. Zanku picked her up. "Come on, can't let a guy finish his own monologue? You're no better than him." He pointed at Tatsumi. "Besides, you know I can still read your mind, don't you!"

Carmine let out a howl and pounced on Zanku with a blood blade, only for Zanku to raise his arm up without even looking. Both blades clashed and Carmine was repelled. Zanku turned around to Carmine and threw Orie over to him. "Blood? What a delightful ability you have!" he chirped. "Is that an imperial arms I don't know about?"

Carmine smirked. "Hah! None of those dumb weapons could ever compare to my blood spike! Not even your stupid eyeball!"

Zanku raised an eyebrow. "Oh? A natural ability is it? Now this makes it even more fun!"

"Oh, it's gonna get real fun in a second here," sneered Carmine. "Get ready, Cyclops!"

Carmine ran full-force at Zanku, swinging wildly at him. Zanku kept blocking with his own arm blades. "Your offense is unpredictable," he said. He pushed his arms up and sent Carmine's up too. "But your defense is!" He slashed at Carmine and left a massive gash across his chest.

"Guh, damn it!" retched Carmine, clutching his chest. He saw the blood spilling from him and around Zanku. He got an idea, only to be met with Zanku stomping his foot on Carmine's back.

"I don't know what you do with that blood," said Zanku. "But I sure as hell ain't going to let you use it on me!" He kicked Carmine away and stepped away from the blood.

"I'm not done yet!" said Tatsumi. He got up and slashed upwards at Zanku, only to be pushed back towards the In-Births.

"Oh? Not done yet?" Zanku laughed. "Good! I hate to see people die too fast. It doesn't make it any fun that way." Now give me everything you got!"

Orie turned to Tatsumi. "Hold him off as long as you can," she said. "I'll tend to Carmine's wound."

Carmine coughed. "Get off," he growled, trying to stand. "I don't need your help! I can still get him!"

"Just take a break for now," said Orie. "Please, Tatsumi."

"Right!" Tatsumi pointed his sword towards the executioner. He ran towards him and lunged his sword multiple times at Zanku, which hit nothing every single time.

"Oh, I do appreciate ambitious young people like you!" said Zanku while dodging Tatsumi's attacks. "But I think you're going to be a perfect addition to my collection of heads!" He slashed at Tatsumi at every angle he could find. Tatsumi managed to block some, but Zanku left multiple cuts across his whole body.

"Hah! Delightful!" Tatsumi stood there, bleeding even worse than before, barely able to stand. "I must say," began Zanku. "I did quite a number on that firm resolve of yours. That pitiful sound of a tough guy begging for mercy is music to my ears!" He turned to Carmine. "Sounds like you might know a thing or two about that, hmm?"

"Shut up! You don't know a damn thing!" barked Carmine. He pushed Orie off of him and tried to stand, only to drop to a knee again.

"Yes! Feel free to beg! You might be able to buy enough time for your friends to catch up!"

Tatsumi spat a bit of blood. "Don't hold your breath," he said. "You're just some filthy bastard who gets his kicks from chopping off heads. There's no way in hell I'm begging you for anything!"

Zanku smiled. "Oh, aren't you courageous! And in so much pain too! It's a good thing you're in the hands of an expert executioner."

Tatsumi raised his sword. "This is it!" He dashed at Zanku with lightning speed, surprising the latter. He left a cut on Zanku's face, along with surprise and concern.

"Heh, it's about time I got one in," said Tatsumi. As soon as he said that, a giant cut opened up on his back, but not enough to drop him. "An expert executioner, huh?" he said. He turned around to face Zanku again. "An expert executioner wouldn't have missed my neck. Some headhunter you turned out to be."

"Shut your mouth!" yelled Zanku. He dashed towards Tatsumi at blazing fast speeds and lunged.

"Thanatos!" yelled Orie. The paladin met Zanku's blades and swung down, making Zanku leap back.

He turned to the sound of the call to find Orie using her rapier to control it. "I've had enough of you two too!" He dashed to them to be stopped by Murasame implanting itself into the ground between them. They all looked into the sky to find Akame making her way down to the ground.

Akame picked up her sword and got into a stance. She smirked. "He looks pretty upset. You must have used your own psychological tactics."

"Talk about timing," sighed Orie in relief.

Akame turned to Carmine and Orie. "Just sit tight. I'll finish him off and then I'll help tend to those wounds you both have."

Zanku smiled. He tore off his overcoat. "Well if it isn't Akame and her infamous Murasame! How delightful, nice to meet you, dear."

"So nice to meet you as well," sneered Akame. "Since you're my target."

Zanku opened up his Spectator. "X-ray," he said.

"Careful Akame!" warned Tatsumi. "That thing can read your mind!"

"I see. I wondered which imperial arms you would be using." Akame steeled herself. "No matter. It makes no difference if he can read my mind if he can't keep up!" She dashed hard at Zanku and lunged. Both traded swings for a few seconds, each clash sounding louder and louder. Akame sent a roundhouse kick his way, which pushed him back several feet.

"So this is an imperial arms duel," said Orie.

Akame tried striking from the top, which was barely blocked by Zanku. Seeing the surprise in her eyes, Zanku swung down, cracking the pavement with it. Akame dodged, but not without receiving a scratch on her leg. "Come on now, it wouldn't be very fair if I couldn't rough you up a little bit, now would it?" taunted Zanku.

"You can see what I'm thinking and what I'm about to do," said Akame. "I'd say we're even."

"So Akame, tell me. How do you deal with the voices?"

Akame tilted her head in confusion. "Voices?"

Zanku looked to the ground. "Listen closely, you can hear them. The people I've killed are screaming at me from hell. They sound so angry. And they're constantly yelling at me to hurry up and join them down there! I've been hearing them every day since I became an executioner. And it keeps getting worse. I just keep talking to drown out the noise. So tell me, what do you do about-"

"I don't hear them," answered Akame. That threw off Zanku a bit. "Your voices. I don't hear anything like that."

"Interesting. I thought that for such an experienced assassin you for sure would understand." He readied his blades. "YOU HAVE DISAPPOINTED ME!"

Akame's expression changed. Her eyes went wide with surprise. She saw a girl that looked similar to her, wearing a sailor outfit. "K-kurome…" she stammered.

"What's wrong, Akame!?" yelled Tatsumi. "Hey! Snap out of it!"

"She can't," said Zanku. "Illusionary sight creates a mirage of the person you care most about in this world. Right now, she's looking at a vision of someone so important to her that she can't bring herself to do harm to me."

"So that's why I thought I saw Sayo," said Tatsumi. "Akame! Please! Don't let him get to you! It's not real!"

"Don't bother. It may only work on one target but it's extremely hypnotic. Besides, no matter how much skill you have, nobody can make themselves kill the one they love the most, CAN THEY!?" He lept up, ready to strike Akame down. "This is the last thing you'll see before you die, Akame. Enjoy it!"

Akame still slashed at the mirage, and by extension, Zanku. He blocked and freaked out at the reaction. "Wh-what the hell!?" he cried. "You were supposed to see the person you loved the most!"

Akame's voice was calm. "My desire to kill her," she began. "Is because I love her so dearly. It's time for this battle to end." Zanku's blade began to chip, disturbing him further. "I'll start by destroying that weapon first!"

Both imperial arms users ran at each other full force, ready to make their blades meet. Akame was swinging fast, making Zanku reckless and more focused on defending. Unfortunately his defensive tactics were starting to break his blades more. "Back off of me!" he yelled. He kicked Akame several feet away. Unfortunately for him, he looked down to see himself stepping in the bit of blood released from Carmine earlier. "N-no…"

"RISE!" yelled Carmine. He weakly threw up his arm, which sent multiple stalagmites going through Zanku's entire lower body and his blades, which broke on impact.

"You are done," said Akame. She cut his throat apart, dropping him to the ground.

"You did it!" cheered Tatsumi.

"Nice work," Orie said to Carmine.

Carmine coughed. "Yeah...great...he went...down…" He dropped to the ground unconscious. Orie patched up his wound in time, but his lack of blood couldn't keep him awake.

Akame looked at Zanku's body. "Zanku. Those voices. May they never haunt you again."

The headband on Zanku's Spectator broke. He looked up to the night sky. "The voices...they're gone…it's...delightful...I thank you…Akame." Those were the last words he spoke before he perished from the earth forever.

Orie put Carmine's arm around her shoulder. Akame grabbed Spectator from Zanku's head. "The mission is complete. Let's find the others and report back."

"Right. Well done," replied Orie. The four of them went to rendezvous with the rest of the team and report back to the boss. The mission was complete and they managed to gain another imperial arms.


	11. Kill The Dream

_(A/N: Yeah, sorry it's been a while since I've uploaded the next chapter. Real life things, holidays, and dicking around playing video games kind of kept me from getting back on this. But here we are, back at it! Hope you guys enjoy what I'm giving you, and hopefully the next chapter won't take as long!)_

* * *

Orie woke up to the sound of a crash, someone screaming in agonizing pain and reciting every curse word in the dictionary. She got out of her room and rushed down to Carmine's room to find him sprawled face-first on the floor. "Carmine, are you okay!?" she asked frantically.

"Mrmph, nrmphter brmpfter…" he said through muffled words.

"Oh jeez." Orie sighed and turned her partner over, only to be met with more howls of pain. "Mind repeating that one more time?"

"YES. NEVER BETTER!" yelled Carmine as he clutched his chest. He slowly stood up. "Man, you're as helpful as volume control for a deaf person." Orie jabbed him in the chest, making him yell again. "The hell was that for!?"

"I come in to check on you and you start throwing insults at me," said Orie. "Serves you right. Anyways, how's your wound doing?"

"Why the hell do you care?"

She frowned at the question. "Because you were unconscious from the blood loss?"

He narrowed his eyes. "And?"

"Because you're my teammate?"

He crossed his arms. "Piss off. You damn well that In-Births can heal faster than normal humans. You don't need to check on me."

Orie rolled her eyes and smiled. "So….if I do THIS…" She poked him again in his wound, making him howl and double over in pain again. She started giggling.

"Damn it, knock it off!" he complained. "Do you want to die!?"

She tried hard not to laugh. "Oh come on now. You're wound can't be THAT bad if you're an In-Birth, right? There's no reason that I have to check on you if you're fine from THIS…" She poked him again, agonizing him further.

Carmine was getting furious. "For God's sakes, Lady, stop that!"

Tatsumi and Sheele were walking down the hallway to Orie and Carmine when they heard their voices coming from Carmine's room. "Funny, I didn't expect them to be in the same room," observed Sheele. "I guess that saves us the trip of walking to both rooms." Suddenly, their voices started getting clearer and clearer.

"Will you stop poking me already!?" shouted Carmine.

"Oh please, it's fun watching you squirm when I touch you there," laughed Orie.

"Yeah? You want me to start making you cry? Because I sure as hell will if you don't cut it out!"

"You can try all you want. Poke."

"OW, DAMN IT! Alright, but let's just say this ain't gonna be poking as much as it is me using my fists!"

Tatsumi and Sheele looked at each other blankly. "Erm, what's going on in there?" asked Tatsumi.

Sheele didn't look like she wanted to guess. "L-l-let's just go get them r-r-ready for today, yes?"

They slowly peeked their heads into Carmine's room to find Orie laughing and poking Carmine's chest while the latter tried swatting her hand away from his wound. "Um, good morning?" Tatsumi said meekly.

Both Carmine and Orie took notice of their visitors and stopped roughhousing with each other. "Oh, good morning!" nervously said Orie. "What brings you two here?"

"I'm training you three today, heh heh," said Sheele. She took a deep breath. "Well, this is certainly better than what I thought I would find here."

Carmine raised an eyebrow. "The hell did you think you'd find in here?" he asked. "It's my room, not like it's special or anything." He looked over his shoulder at Orie. "Okay, maybe it's prone to assholes who love to jab at people's injuries."

"Um, n-nothing!" Sheele waved her hands away, blushing all the while. "Nothing out of the ordinary! I fully expected to see you two somewhere, ready for the day! Yep, nothing else!"

Carmine and Orie looked at each other and then back to Sheele. "Oooooookay," they said at the same time.

* * *

"Wow, Akame really outdid herself this time!" praised Orie. She was looking at the fruit arrangement Akame had created that morning for breakfast. "This is beautiful!"

Lubbock took a piece of fruit from the tray. "Are you sure it's a good idea to leave Sheele in charge of them?"

"That doesn't sound good," muttered Carmine. "What are you signing us up for now?"

"She's….strange sometimes."

Najenda took a bite of her apple. "Ah, you'll be alright. I'm sure she'll take a liking to you three."

"What makes you say that?" asked Lubbock.

"Orie and Carmine haven't given us too many problems yet. And it seems like Tatsumi is popular with older women."

"Yep!" chirped Leone. "And that's why I get to be his trainer next!"

Najenda smiled. "See? He's a natural talent."

"Aw, damn it that is such bullcrap!" whined Lubbock.

"You may go so far as to say he's-" Najenda looked at the four of them. "A lady killer." Her pun was met with haunting silence and disbelief from her audience. "You get it, right? Because he's an assassin?" They all took a couple of steps back from her. "Oh well, maybe next time."

"Please tell me you didn't expect a different response than that," deadpanned Orie.

The boss sighed. "Well, I expected a chuckle at least. I'm an assassin, not a comedian."

After Najenda's comedy session went flat, Akame walked in, wearing her apron. "So then about lunch, I was thinking that I might make some Mapo beef bowls," she said.

Lubbock frowned. "Well I'd prefer if you decided between Mapo tofu and beef-"

"Sounds good!" said Leone and Najenda.

"And I'll top it off with a little fried chicken, okay?"

"Fried chicken too?" said Lubbock. "Don't you think that's a little bit mu-"

"Sounds great!" said the two women.

"Gosh," Orie said, completely amazed. "I didn't think I'd expect such a huge meal for lunch."

"Where the hell do they put it all?" asked Carmine. He observed them carefully, trying to find an answer.

Leone slapped him on the back, which made him grunt in pain. "Aw come on! Can't fight on an empty stomach, can you?"

"Do I look like a bodybuilder to you?" he retorted. "And what's with everyone hitting me today?"

"No, but you look like you could use some meat on those shoulders," laughed Leone.

Before Carmine could reply, Lubbock put a hand on his shoulder. "Give it up, man," he sighed. "Those three have the stomachs of an army."

"I'll begin preparations soon." Akame left the kitchen, leaving the five of them alone.

"You two should go find Tatsumi and Sheele," said the boss to Carmine and Orie. "You're with her today." They left to go find their partners and begin the day's training.

* * *

The four of them visited the nearby river for Sheele's training session. She began by having them put on armor and begin swimming. Predictably, it was not easy. Sheele sat on a rock while the three of them attempted to swim with armor on.

Orie rose first; swimming with armor wasn't easy for her, but her training in the Licht Kreis had helped her become a strong swimmer in case of emergencies or naval travel. "Finally!" she said. "That was tough."

Tatsumi was right behind her, albeit struggled to get out of the water more. He pushed himself up out of the water and sprawled out on the ground. "So heavy," he panted. "Man that was really hard."

Lastly came Carmine. After flipping his hair out of his face, he pushed himself up and rolled out of the water. "And this is why I don't wear armor," he breathed. "That sucked."

Sheele smiled. "Congratulations, you learned how to swim in armor!"

"Um, is there a reason we have to do this, despite the fact that neither of us wear armor?" asked Orie.

Sheele nodded. "It's a requirement as a part of our "how to train assassins" curriculum." She smiled nervously. "I…don't really do any chores or anything, so I kind of specialize in training new recruits like you."

"So why don't you do any chores?" asked Tatsumi.

Sheele's face was steely calm as she tried to figure out how to answer that. "I tried to cook, but I burned the meat, which made Akame a little upset. And I caused trouble for Bulat when I tried to clean." She sounded increasingly ashamed with each task she listed off. "And Leone laughed at me when I bought sugar instead of salt. I tried laundry, but I sort of ended up washing Mine along with all of the dirty clothes."

"Aw, don't feel too bad," said Tatsumi.

"She smelled better in the end, right?" said Carmine, trying not to fall to the ground laughing. Both on them were silently thinking "Yes! Great job!"

Tatsumi sobered up. "Oh, hey, I just realized. When I first met the team, you were the only one who wasn't there."

Sheele froze. She put her finger to her lips in thought. "Um, I'm sure there was a reason, but I don't remember?" She hung her head. "I'm such an airhead."

"That's for sure," Tatsumi said under his breath.

She stood up and bowed her head. "I really do apologize." As soon as the last word left her mouth, her glasses left her head. She got on the ground and began patting around for them "Oh, not again."

"Airhead's being generous," said Carmine.

"Oh, stop it, will you?" Orie picked up her glasses and handed them to her. "Here you go, Sheele."

"Thanks." Sheele put her glasses back on. "I really need to find better glasses or something."

"So how did you get into this line of work?" asked Tatsumi.

Sheele looked down sorrowfully. "Well, it's kind of a complicated story. I grew up in one of the older parts of the Imperial Capital. I've never been able to do anything right. I couldn't take pride in a single thing I did, heh. People would always make mean comments about me, like maybe I was crazy or something."

"Uh," began Carmine. "About tha- OW!" Orie poked him in the chest again, doubling him over and shutting him up.

"But thankfully, I had a friend who was very kind to me," continued Sheele. "No matter what happened or how badly I messed up, she would never make fun of me. The time I spent with her was the only ray of happiness in my life. But it….it didn't last for long."

A wave of despair washed across her face. "One day I was visiting her house like I always did, when a man came to the door. He was her...ex-boyfriend. He was furious, and yelling, and breaking things. Then he tried to strangle her. I think he was drunk or on something. My first thought was "I need to save my friend." Next thing I know, I held a bloody knife in my hand, I was drenched in blood and he laid on the ground, gushing out blood from his neck."

Her eyes softened a bit. "The strange thing? I was surprisingly calm. I couldn't believe how quickly he died. My friend was so scared she started shaking. But my head was completely clear. When it was all said and done, the events of that night were all written off as self-defense. But I never heard from my friend again after that."

"A few days later, the man's friends came to get revenge. They told me they've killed my parents and that they were going to kill me next. Despite all the awful things they said, I was incredibly relaxed. I killed them. All of them. One by one. That was the moment I realized what I must do. I'm good at this. At killing! Maybe because I'm a little crazy, if I kill, I can make the world a better place."

"I'm not sure I'd be so willing to put something like that on my resume," said Orie. "Saying killing is the only thing you're good at tends to draw attention."

Sheele sighed. "Yeah, and that's what I felt at first too. But everything tends to work in the end, right?"

"So how'd you end up in Night Raid?" asked Tatsumi.

"I was a solo assassin in the capital until the Revolutionary Army scouted me out. One thing led to another and now I'm here."

Tatsumi looked down. "Do you...think I can do this?"

Sheele smiled. "You'll do just fine." He smiled at that. "Well unlike me, you're a _very_ talented cook."

He frowned. "That's what you thought I meant?"

"You're doing great, Tatsumi!"

They looked around. "Where did that voice come from?" asked Orie.

Her question was quickly answered. Out of the river behind them appeared a shirtless Bulat, flexing and popping his muscles.

"Dude, do you think this muscle stuff's making you crazy?" asked Carmine.

Bulat flexed again. "Nothing crazy about it. How about I show ya?"

Not even beginning to think about what Bulat meant by that, Carmine grimaced. "Nope. That's it. I'm out of here!" He started walking to base.

Bulat was stunned. "I figured he'd want to spar or something," he wondered.

Sheele turned to the three of them. "We should head back too."

* * *

Later that night, Najenda called everyone into the foyer for a meeting. "Tatsumi, Carmine, it's good to see you two are fully recovered," she began. "We had recovered Headhunter Zanku's imperial arms from the other night. Tatsumi, I'd like you to try it out."

"Wow, are you sure!?" exclaimed Tatsumi. "It's for me!?"

"It's all yours, sugar," replied Bulat.

"Careful," warned Lubbock. "These things are known for putting a lot of pressure on your mind and body."

Tatsumi took Spectator from Najenda and put it on. "It wasn't in my book anywhere, so we still don't have much information on it," she said.

"Zanku was reading people's' minds with it," said Akame. "See if you can read my mind."

Tatsumi focused on Akame for a long minute. Suddenly he got something. "I can't wait to eat meat tonight!" he shouted.

Akame was surprised. "That's amazing!"

Leone crossed her arms. "Nope, he hasn't even activated the stupid thing yet."

"Well I sure don't want him to read my mind," scathed Mine. "It's supposed to have five sights, so quit stalling and try them out!"

Tatsumi shot her a look. "Jeez, take a chill pill." He sat down.

"If I remember correctly, he had shown us all five sights," said Orie. "Foresight, mind reading, the one where he could read our muscle movements and predict them, the illusionary sight, and the x-ray setting."

"Try one of them out," said Lubbock. "I'm curious to see how this works."

Tatsumi sat still for a minute, concentrating on how to get it to work. Suddenly, the green metal eyeball opened up and focused its gaze on Mine, Sheele, Akame and Orie. He chose the x-ray setting, only to find the four girls in their underwear.

He felt his face get hot. "What do you see?" asked Mine.

"AUGH!" he yelled.

Mine leaned in close to inspect it, agitating Tatsumi even further. "What? What's this power you have?"

Suddenly, Tatsumi froze. His skin got clammy. His body was weak. His head was hurting badly. "Crap, it's rejecting him!" cried Lubbock.

"I'm taking it off!" Akame ripped Spectator off of Tatsumi's head. He started to relax a bit, though he was still rubbing his head.

"Man, my head really hurts," he said, still rubbing where the imperial arms was latched onto his head.

"It's not a match," said Najenda. "Your affinity is a little off."

"You probably just didn't like the way that it looked with your sweater," joked Mine. "They say your first impression of an imperial arms shows how well you bond with it."

Najenda took Spectator and inspected it. "Let's have headquarters take a look at it. I'm sure it'll be a great asset once we know a little more."

"Sometimes on our missions we come across targets who have imperial arms just as Headhunter Zanku did," explained Akame. "Our superiors prefer if we try to steal or destroy as many of them as we possibly can."

"So the more of these things we get, the closer we get to pounding the Minister, right?" asked Carmine.

"That's right." Najenda handed Tatsumi a book. "Here's a book on imperial arms I encourage you three to read."

Tatsumi flipped through some of the pages. "There's so many. And they're all so different. It's really unbelievable."

"You should memorize the details of every weapon in there," said Najenda.

"So which one would be considered the most powerful imperial arms?" asked Orie.

"It depends on the user. That said, if I had to make a choice," Najenda's voice trailed off for a second. She steeled herself for the explanation. "One can manipulate ice. Its user is quite strong. Fortunately for us, she's not in the capital right now. She's trying to subdue the people in the north."

"Why the north?" asked Tatsumi.

"The prince of the north known as Numa Seika. He's a legendary hero who fights with a spear and has never lost. Not only is he a master strategist, but his people trust him very deeply. Which makes him a threat to the empire. He took over the northern fortress capital and made it into a base for his army. Since then, he and his men had begun to invade more aggressively. But the empire formed a special unit to fight them off."

"I don't think we'll need to worry about that," reassured Lubbock, breaking the boss out of her worries. "It'll take a year to stop the northern tribe, even for her."

Najenda wasn't convinced. "We can only hope."

Tatsumi started chuckling to himself. "Well I say bring it on! Let's go and get as many of these things as we can!"

"You're in an awfully good mood," observed Leone. "What's gotten into you?"

Tatsumi turned to face everyone. "There's still some imperial arms out there we don't know about right? Well that gives me a really great idea."

"Somehow I doubt that," Orie muttered to herself.

"I mean they can do all these amazing things! So what if, maybe, what if there's even an imperial arms that can bring people back from the dead!?" Everyone's faces clouded with doubt and irritation at Tatsumi's theory. "You know? Right? If there is, I can bring Sayo and Ieyasu back! All we have to do is keep looking!"

"Oh honey." Tatsumi's smile faded as soon as he turned to the sound of Bulat's voice. "Not even an imperial arms can bring the dead back to life, Tatsumi. We only get one shot at life."

Tatsumi gritted his teeth. "No! No, you don't know that for sure! We just have to find it, that's all!"

"Then what about the first emperor?" asked Akame. "If he could have done that, he'd still be alive."

"He probably thought it was impossible and that's why he made imperial arms in the first place," finished Bulat.

Tatsumi's face slowly descended into hopelessness. "Just forget it," said Akame. "If you don't let go of that weakness, the enemy will surely see it. And if that happens, it'll get you killed."

"I understand how you feel about your friends, but the second something is dead, it stays dead." Najenda's eyes never lost that serious gaze. "Tatsumi, you have my word that we will try to hunt down more imperial arms and that you may be able to obtain one of your own. But imperial arms are not miracle makers. Each one was made for a practical purpose meant for defending the capital. For now, get some rest. We will have more work to do." She stood up. "Nothing further tonight, you're all dismissed."

Everyone began to split up in different directions to go spend the rest of their night. Everyone except Sheele and Tatsumi. Tatsumi stood where he was, pouring over the details of what he was just told.

Sheele felt his pain just by looking at him. It was like telling a small child that their puppy had just died and you couldn't figure out how to explain that it was never going to come back. She walked up to him. "Tatsumi?" she asked. "Are you going to-"

He shook his head. "I need to go out and get some fresh air," he said. He turned from her and started walking out to Sayo and Ieyasu's graves, leaving a concerned Sheele alone to feel sorry for him and make her wonder if she should go follow him.

* * *

Carmine and Orie began walking back to their rooms, contemplating everything that was said during that meeting. Tatsumi's crestfallen expression at the inability to bring back Sayo and Ieyasu weighed on Orie. "I can't help but feel sorry for him every time he brings up his friends," she said.

"You're better off worrying about staying alive yourself," scathed Carmine. "Once someone's dead, they're nothing more than worm food. The least you can do is stay alive long enough to see what they can't."

Orie's face grew hot. "How can you be so cold!? He loved his friends! Don't you know what it's like to lose someone you love? It's horrible."

Carmine stopped dead in his tracks as soon as the last word left her mouth. He turned around to face her, but if looks could kill, Orie would be dead in a second. "You better end that conversation right there," he growled. "Unless you want to join Sayo and Ieyasu yourself."

Orie stood her ground, ready for a verbal fight. "So this is what you were mad about the other day, huh? Seems like every time I mention friends or family, you want to cut someone's head off! Why!?"

Carmine grabbed her dress collar and leaned in real close to her face. Her eyes widened at his sudden movement. "This is the last time I'm going to warn you. Hold your tongue or I'll rip it out." He pushed her to the ground and stormed off to his room.

Orie sat on the ground, speechless at what had just transpired between them. She was upset at his abrasiveness towards loss of friends and family, but also concerned about why he was acting the way he was. She sighed and got up. She walked back to her room, only to lay awake, wondering what was going on with Carmine.

* * *

The next day, Leone, Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi were walking around one of the busier parts of town. The city was busy with people selling their wares, people buying groceries or clothes, children running around, usual marketplace activity.

"Look at this place," mused Tatsumi. "There's a lot going on."

"Yep, it's a lively part of town," replied Leone. "When you're poor, you gotta keep yourself busy." She greeted some passerby on the street with a smile, all of whom seemed to know her well.

"Man, you sure are popular with these people," said Tatsumi.

Leone smiled. "That's because this is the part of town where I grew up. I know it sounds crazy, but I was famous for my back massa-"

She was quickly cut off by the sound of men yelling her name, but not with any positive undertone to it. And they were charging the group incredibly quick. "Oh CRAP!" she yelped. She made a beeline for the other direction, forcing the other three to follow her.

"So, what do you think of my old neighborhood?" asked Leone, trying to sound calm while she ran away.

"Oh yeah, it's really great!" yelled Tatsumi. "I hope I don't end on one of your friends' hit lists!"

"What do they want you for anyways!?" yelled Orie through bated breaths.

"I…...have a lot of gambling debts," admitted Leone sheepishly.

"So why the hell are WE running away then!?" complained Carmine. "If they have a beef with you, why are we dragged into this?"

"You think they're gonna care? They probably think you're with me." Carmine narrowed his eyes at her reply. Leone looked over at an alley. "Come on! We'll lose them in there!" She led the three to the alley and kept running.

Carmine, Orie and Tatsumi ran a little ahead of her and turned a corner, still running all the while. They turned a few more corners and then stopped to catch their breath.

"God this neighborhood sucks!" yelled Carmine. "Now we got a bunch of clowns who want to beat us up because Leone can't stop conning people!"

"Oh calm down," said Orie. "I don't think they'd do much to us anyways since we've got nothing to do with her…..habits."

Carmine rolled his eyes. "Yeah, a bunch of rabid thugs chasing us doesn't exactly convince me."

Tatsumi panted for a few more seconds then regained his composure. "Either way, I think we lost them. You okay, Sis?" He turned around to face Leone, only to find that she wasn't with them. He began to panic and took another look down the alleyway. "Leone!?"

Orie put her hand to her face and sighed. "Please tell me we didn't lose Leone."

Carmine smirked. "So basically 'don't tell you the truth' is what you're saying." Orie hung her head in utter disbelief.

While the three of them were frantically trying to figure out where they were, suddenly they heard a girl's voice a short distance away. "YOU THERE!"

The three of them froze and slowly turned towards the new voice. They found a girl with a long, auburn ponytail, an armored dress and dragging around what looked like a dog. "You seem to need assistance, citizens!" she said with gusteau.

"That uniform…" wondered Tatsumi aloud.

The girl saluted. "Proud member of the Imperial Guard! Seryu at your service!"

Orie took notice of the "dog" standing next to Seryu and smiled. "Oh my, you have a cute pet!" she gushed.

"Wait, is that dog standing on its legs?" noticed Carmine.

Seryu beamed and faced the dog, who was mildly whimpering. "Coro, you hungry buddy? Don't worry, we'll leave soon."

Tatsumi couldn't hide his confusion. "Sorry, what is that?"

Seryu picked up the creature, who was apparently named Coro. "He's my imperial arms, Hecatonchier." They all stiffened at the sound of "imperial arms." "Don't worry, he only bites bad guys."

Tatsumi studied the blank face of the creature intently. His mind flashed back to the book Najenda told them about. "Oh, that's right!" Seryu said, snapping him out of his studying. "You needed help, didn't you?"

Tatsumi quickly snapped back to attention. "No, no! We just got a little turned around, that's all. I think I remember the name of the place we were at before."

Seryu quickly perked up, accidentally dropping Coro, which worried Orie at the sight of her carelessness. "I can help you find it!" chirped Seryu. "I'm on patrol right now, anyway!" She quickly took his hand and began leading him through the alley. Carmine and Orie were about to follow when suddenly Coro began going berserk at the sight of Seryu holding Tatsumi's hand.

Carmine narrowed his eyes. "So, do all imperial guards have a weird pet like this or is it just you?"

Seryu picked Coro up and cradled him. "Of course not. I'm the only one of the imperial guards who has an imperial arms. Coro, well that's the name I've given him anyway, he won't cooperate with anyone unless he can tell that they have an extremely high affinity with him. Supposedly none of the top-ranked officers were able to click with Coro, so they started running tests on low-level grunts like me. I was told that he responded to my righteous heart while I was getting examined. And he's been my cute little companion ever since! Right, Coro?" Coro squirmed in delight.

"That might explain why that mutt seems to hate us," scoffed Carmine. Coro growled at him, only to be matched with Carmine leering at him. Coro jumped out of Seryu's hands and bit his leg.

"OW! OW OW OW OW!" howled Carmine. He tried shaking Coro off of him, only to be met with him biting harder. He was wincing in pain. "Someone get this little bastard off of me!"

"Coro, no! Bad!" scolded Seryu. She pulled Coro off of Carmine, who immediately checked for bloody bite marks. She studied him for a second and frowned. "Something tells me you've got a bit of an evil side, otherwise Coro wouldn't have bit you."

"That's not entirely wrong," said Orie, trying not to laugh. "He's got a bad temper and personality."

"Shut the hell up," spat Carmine. "The little shit probably just bit me because I had a food crumb on my leg or something."

"Well, no matter. Now let's get you three to where you belong!" Seryu began to lead them out of the alley and through the bazaar. They four of them walked a little ways until they landed in the spot Leone was with them at prior to the chase. "Alright, I'm pretty sure this is the place you're looking for," said Seryu.

"Thank you so much," said Tatsumi, bowing his head in appreciation.

"You might have just saved us from being lost," added Orie.

Seryu saluted again. "I'm honored! And let me know if you see anything evil. You can depend on us to rip it to pieces!"

Orie and Tatsumi smiled uncomfortably. "That makes me feel safe, I guess," said Tatsumi.

Carmine and Coro were still having a glaring contest with each other. "You're on my shit list now," threatened Carmine. Coro growled back in response.

Seryu turned to run away. "Time to go little buddy! You still hungry? Let's find some-" She ran off, comically dragging Coro with her.

"I swear I'm gonna kill that thing," muttered Carmine, rubbing his wound.

Orie didn't look too sure. "Carmine? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that thing is an imperial arms. I'm not too sure killing it would be that easy."

Tatsumi's eyes hardened. "A guard with an imperial arms, huh?" he wondered. "This could get ugly."

"We're going to have to return to the boss with news about that thing," said Orie. "We should get back immediately."

"Remind me to look up how to slaughter it," said Carmine. "I want first crack at it when I get the chance."

"First thing's first, we need to get back and report what we found." Tatsumi started walking towards the base. "Come on, it's starting to get late. I'm sure Leone's already made it home." The three of them made their way home right before nightfall. They all began to worry about what was going to come of an imperial guard with an imperial arms.


	12. Kill The Absolute Justice (Part 1)

_(A/N): Again, sorry for taking so long to do this. So, this chapter is actually the entire episode, but I'm adding a second part for the sake of expanding on what will transpire between Orie and Carmine (no, it's not romance) post-episode. Anyways, enjoy this next chapter!_

* * *

The following night, Night Raid was assigned two different jobs. Tatsumi, Orie and Leone were sent to investigate and assassinate the members of a drug smuggling ring, whom were also capturing and drugging women. Sheele, Mine and Carmine were sent to take out the leader, Chibaru.

The first squad was dispatched to an oriental-looking district, where they sat perched on some rooftops. Everywhere they looked had food stalls, people in kimonos, merchants selling wares, and above all else, prostitutes. "So this is the capital's red light district, huh?" asked Tatsumi. "I'm a little nervous."

Leone smiled. "Aww, Tatsumi, you look so cute when you act all bashful. Anyways that money ain't gonna make itself."

She flexed her muscles and concentrated. "Lionelle, transform!" A few seconds later, her imperial arms gave her a beast's tail, ears, paws and wilder hair. She smiled with glee. "When I get into beast mode, I feel like I can just take on the whole world!" Tatsumi and Orie were in awe at her transformation.

She grabbed Tatsumi bridal-style and got ready to jump. "Come on! Let's get ready to make a mess of things!"

Tatsumi suddenly noticed the position he was in. "Huh?" He didn't even have time to protest because suddenly Leone started running fast along the rooftops of the buildings. He held on for dear life while pleading for his captor to slow down.

Orie was stunned. "D-did she forget that I was...oh forget it." She sighed and tried her best to catch up to them. "Leone really needs to make a mental note to consider how fast her teammates are," she muttered to herself while she pursued them.

Five minutes later, the three of them were inside of the target's building's attic, though Orie had finally caught up to them after Tatsumi and Leone got to the location three minutes earlier. Orie was breathing heavily. "How...much...power...does that...give you?" she panted.

Leone smiled sheepishly. "Whoops, sorry 'bout that Orie!" she apologized while rubbing her head. "I kind of get carried away when I use Lionelle!"

"No kidding," grunted Tatsumi. "Alright, we're here. Let's nail these bastards."

Leone opened up one of the ceiling panels. "Look at this," she said. She showed Orie and Tatsumi an ugly sight to behold: nearly a hundred prostitutes drugged on opioids ventilating the room, all falling over each other and giggling, not even aware of the situation they were in.

A few seconds later, two men in suits walked into the building. One was wearing an eyepatch and a pink suit and the other a white suit. "Hoo, they sure are going to town," said the man in the pink. He faced his captives. "If you want me to bring you more, be sure to be good little girls, understand?"

"Okay!" replied all of the girls.

The man in white noticed one girl, who was giggling insanely and laying still on the ground. "Hey boss? What about that one over there?" he asked.

The man in pink narrowed his eyes at the scene he was directed to. "Eh, I'm done with her," he dismissed. "Her mind's gone and she stinks of fish. Just get rid of her. These bitches are pretty easy to replace."

Suddenly the girl began grabbing the man in white's suit in a zombie-like manner, completely crazed. "Please! I need more!" she begged. She was met with a punch from the man, knocking her out cold. Leone looked on, barely able to contain her anger at the sight.

The two men looked at the unconscious girl and sighed. "I guess we need to go pick up a few more girls from the slums."

"Yeah, these bitches are a dime-a-dozen. Show 'em a little money and they'll do whatever you want."

"This is even more sick than the client said it was," whispered Tatsumi. "Those bastards!"

"Death is too good for people who treat human lives as cheap resources," growled Orie. "They need to feel their victims' pain first."

Leone's face was dark. "That girl he was just hitting?" Tatsumi and Orie turned to her. "She was a friend of mine from back home." She smashed her fists together. "Now I'm pissed; let's just slaughter these pukes and be done with it!"

"Roger that," replied Tatsumi.

"Lead the way," added Orie.

The three of them scurried over to the platform of another room the two men had entered, whom were now having a meeting with some henchmen. "It looks like we're in prime position to move and expand the drug route a little bit," said the man in white.

"Yeah, probably so," said the man in pink while he fondled a woman's breasts. "I'll have a talk with Mr. Chibaru and see how he feels about it."

"Time to go," ordered Leone.

The three smashed through the ceiling and faced the frightened room occupants. They readied their weapons and leered at their targets. "We're here to send every single one of you straight to hell!" they yelled.

The man in white sobered up and steeled himself. "Get those punks!" he demanded. "Bring back their heads!"

All of the henchmen in the room charged the three assassins, who had also began running at their adversaries. The henchmen split up and got out their swords. Two ran at Tatsumi and began to swing for his head. He ducked low and sliced them in half. Two others ran at Orie from opposite ends. She evaded with a handstand and used Divine Thrust to impale both of their heads on her rapier.

Six of them surrounded Leone, who was crossing her arms and smiling. "Every person in this trafficking ring is our target, which means all of you are going to die." She readied herself. "Get ready for some pain, fellas!" Three dashed at her and swung their weapons, but with each miss of the swing, the unfortunate attacker was met with a superhuman punch or kick, breaking whatever limb was unlucky enough to be in the way of Leone's counter. She jumped over the other three of them and roundhouse kicked them into a wall, killing them all on impact.

The man in white shook violently with fear. "I'm not...gonna die." He nervously drew his machine pistol and aimed at the general area of the assassins. "I'm not gonna let you kill me!"

His proclamation was shattered upon the sight of Tatsumi and his sword mere inches away from him. His jaw dropped and he began to sweat. "Then you'll have to move faster than that, dick," said Tatsumi before cleaving his body in half.

The man in pink barely had time to process what had happened before Leone grabbed his neck and lifted him into the air. "Please, take whatever you want!" he begged. "You want money? You want drugs!? I'll give you anything! I'll give you everything! Just let me go, please!"

His words fell on deaf ears, for Leone did not budge an inch upon his pleas. "Anything I want, huh?" she began. "Thanks, but the only thing I want from you is your life."

The man's windpipe was beginning to crush under Leone's grasp. "Who-who the hell are you people, anyway!?"

Leone smirked. She looked up at the man in ecstasy. "Oh, we're just bitches!" she yelled before punching his body so hard it flew into a wall and left a hole. "I mean honestly, who better than a few bitches to take you out?"

"Uh, could you come up with something better to call us please?" complained Tatsumi.

"I'd rather not be referred to as a "bitch" if that's alright," agreed Orie.

Leone snapped out of her moment and smiled. "Aw come on guys! You can't end a satisfying kill like that one without some cruel irony, right? He was treating girls that he referred to as bitches like crap, so therefore the bitches need to pound him into crap!"

Neither one of them were convinced. "Right, sure," said Tatsumi. "Anyways, let's get out of here. Our job's done."

* * *

A few minutes later, the three of them were walking down the promenade and discussing the job and the aftermath. The targets were taken care of, but there was still some concern about the welfare of the girls they kept captive.

"So what's going to happen to all of those girls?" asked Tatsumi. "They're really messed up now."

"Unfortunately, that's not really our call," answered Leone.

"I know but still."

"There's a retired doctor who still lives around here. I'll let him know what happened." Leone looked up to the sky while deep in thought. "He'd probably be more than happy to lend a hand. The doc always was fond of pretty girls, so everybody wins. Know what I'm saying?"

That seemed to reassure Tatsumi. "That's great! See? I always knew you had a little soft side."

"I used to be friends with one of those women. That's all it is," said Leone wistfully.

"It's good to know that they'll get treatment," said Orie. "But I hope they're not beyond saving. Those opioids seemed extremely strong."

Leone shook her head. "I don't think I would worry about it. It's true that the drugs used were strong, but I'm sure he'll be able to save most, if not all of them. Some might just take some more time than others to recover. Either way, I'm just glad that I got some revenge on them for hurting my friend and enslaving the others. That's the only reason I wanted to help."

"Well I don't care _why_." The two girls looked over at Tatsumi, who looked cheerful. "All that matters is that those girls get another chance to start over." Orie smiled and nodded.

"Tatsumi."

Tatsumi stopped walking and turned to Leone. "I've been meaning to tell you something." She leaned in close to his ear. "When you let yourself smile, you're really sweet." Before he could respond, Leone licked his ear.

Tatsumi yelped and dashed back several feet in disgust. Orie wasn't sure if she should be disgusted as well or laugh at his reaction. Leone giggled to herself and faced them both. "You can't run away now, I've already marked my territory! Once you finally grow up, you're gonna be all mine, baby!" She looked back up to the sky. "Well anyway, I wonder how the other group is doing right now."

"Something tells me Mine and Carmine are going to spend most of their mission arguing," sighed Orie.

Leone smirked and shrugged. "Hey, they're more than welcome to tear each other's hair out if the job gets done! But I think Sheele will keep them both in line. Anyways, let's head back." The three of them continued their walk down the promenade and headed back to headquarters.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mine, Carmine and Sheele were running through the forest, fresh off of their most recent kill. "Man, that Chibaru guy was so obnoxiously careful I thought we'd never track him down!" said Mine.

"Yeah that's true," replied Sheele. "But at least we completed the mission on time."

Carmine looked up at the trees and heard a rustle of leaves. "Hey, did you two hear something?" he asked. "I think someone's watching us."

"Oh come on, don't play that game with us," scolded Mine. "How's anyone going to find us if we're this far away from the kill site?"

"I'm not screwing around here!" Carmine shot back. "I swear I heard-" Suddenly he looked back and saw a figure coming at them. "GET DOWN!" He managed to get a stalagmite of blood up in time before the assailant could hit them, but it shattered and sent the three assassins careening on the ground. They got up to face their opponent, but the dust from the impact hadn't dissipated yet.

"Who is that!?" yelled Mine.

Carmine dusted himself off and glared at the direction of the attacker. "Yeah, who the hell-" As soon as the dust separated, a familiar-looking person emerged from the crater. With her dog-like imperial arms in tow.

"Is it an enemy?" asked Mine. "I couldn't sense her at all!"

"The other guards can't conceal their auras, so she must be on a completely different level," said Sheele.

"I can tell you this much," began Carmine. The two girls looked at him. "I know this chick. And I've got one hell of a bone to pick with that mutt of hers."

Seryu took a sheet of paper out of her pocket and looked up at Sheele. "I know you. You're the one from the wanted posters. Sheele of Night Raid I presume? And judging by your friend's weapon, I'm guessing she's from Night Raid too." She then noticed Carmine, who had a redder appearance than when she first met him. "And you! I remember you. You're the one Coro bit the other day! If you're with them, then no wonder Coro thinks you're evil!"

"Ah, put a sock in it, bitch!" snapped Carmine. "Whether I'm with them or not doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna put your stupid dog down just for being a pain in the ass!"

Seryu grinned wide. "Oh that's what I like to hear! The sound of evil acting strong and then begging for mercy when I extinguish it!"

"Oh jeez, someone as crazy as Carmine," muttered Mine.

"Are you actually comparing me to her?" retorted the In-Birth. "I'm not exactly a saint, but this asshole is batshit insane!"

"I'm glad I spent the night on watch or I would never have found the two of you," said Seryu. "Finally! Oh, how badly I've wanted to meet you, Night Raid! I'm imperial guard member Seryu Ubiquitous! In the name of absolute justice, I WILL BANISH YOUR EVIL RIGHT HERE AND NOW!

Mine tried to put up a confident facade despite her current situation. "Well, now that you've blown my cover, you can either die where you're standing or come with us."

Seryu's insanity never faltered for a second. "They say you're wanted dead or alive. So that means I can execute you! Bandits like you are the reason my father was killed in the line of duty. And you were the ones who murdered my mentor, Captain Ogre!"

"Wait, the big guy with the drinking problem?" snarled Carmine. "Yeah, he talked big, but he was just a big chew toy for us to play with. What a waste of time he was."

Seryu's eyes flared with rage. "You will NOT talk bad about Captain Ogre! That man was more respectable than anything you've ever done in your life!" That comment pissed Carmine off faster than Hilda could have. "Just for that, I don't care if you're with Night Raid or not, I'll be sure to finish you here!"

"So you're that eager to fight us huh?" taunted Mine. She drew Pumpkin and took aim. "Then in that case, I'll make this quick!" She fired a volley of bullets at Seryu, but Coro jumped in the way at the last second, which resulted in a giant cloud of dust where they were standing. Mine held her fire and observed the cloud. "Did I get her yet?" she asked no one in particular.

When the dust settled, what was left was a completely unharmed Seryu, and Coro, who was now twice as tall as his owner and filled with holes. He grunted heavily and began to close up the holes like they never existed.

"You've got to be kidding me," deadpanned Carmine. "Did that goddamn dog turn into a monster!?"

"You see that? Is that what I think it is?" asked Sheele.

"I'm afraid so," answered Mine while she changed gun attachments. "It seems that this girl has an organic-type imperial arms."

Seryu raised her arms at the three of them. "Tonfa guns!" she screamed as she fired streams of bullets at them. They split up and evaded the incoming fire. Seryu then stopped firing her guns and pointed at them. "Coro, supper time!" she commanded.

Coro pounced and started spinning like a torpedo at Sheele, jaws out like an incoming blender. As soon as he reached her, Sheele held out Extase and sliced his mouth without even flinching. Coro stumbled across the ground and into a nearby street light. Sheele began to make her way towards Seryu and kill her opponent, but suddenly she heard the imperial arms rise and growl at her. Coro repaired the chelsea grin he was given from her scissors and got ready to devour her, when suddenly a blast from Pumpkin pushed him back towards Seryu.

"Don't you even remember what the book said, Sheele?" said Mine. "Organic types always have a hidden core you have to destroy, otherwise they just keep regenerating! It doesn't have a heart, so Akame's sword won't do any good either."

"This is a surprisingly nasty opponent," commented Sheele.

"Great, so we're stuck fighting this monster who can't seem to die unless we get lucky and then that psycho bitch over there," complained Carmine. "Got any bright ideas?"

"You had a beef with that imperial arms, didn't you?" said Mine. "He's all yours."

Carmine sweatdropped at the sight of Coro. "Erm, well I said that not knowing he'd turn into Godzilla."

Mine raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You going to chicken out now?"

"Shut the hell up!" Carmine got ready to face off against the imperial arms. "Fine, I'll put the mutt to sleep myself!"

"Coro, bulk up." As soon as Coro heard Seryu's command, his whole body transformed into something resembling a weightlifter's physique.

"Ugh," retched Mine. "That's not cute."

"This thing is really pissing me off," added Carmine.

"Crush her!" Coro growled then dashed at the assassins, letting his fists fly anywhere he had room to punch.

"Mine, Carmine, stay behind me!" yelled Sheele. She held out Extase to intercept Coro's punches in the nick of time. He began to wail on Sheele and her scissors, who was starting to get overwhelmed by the onslaught of punches. Carmine tried to move around her to attack Coro, but every time he came close, Coro punched the area he stood at.

"Damn it, I can't get a shot at it!" he yelled.

Suddenly, Seryu blew a whistle, alarming Mine. "This thing's too strong to beat, and she just called in reinforcements. That means we're in big trouble. Perfect."

"Yeah, no shit!" yelled Carmine. He dodged another punch that cracked the pavement he was on. "And what do you mean by-" His words were cut off when he saw Mine leap into the air and aim Pumpkin at Coro.

"You still hungry, little guy?" she snarled. "Well EAT THIS!" Suddenly, a massive wave of energy blasted from Pumpkin's barrel and shrouded Coro's sizeable frame with yellow light. The imperial arms began to melt under the blast until giant holes formed all over its body.

Unfortunately, Mine's blast was for nothing. Coro began to repair himself almost immediately despite his body nearly being blasted to smithereens. "Damn, it's already starting to regenerate itself again," she said. "This is not good!"

"You said that thing has some core we have to destroy, yeah?" asked Carmine. He began to run at Coro. "Then we gotta keep pounding this thing until we find it!"

"Carmine, what the hell are you doing!?" yelled Mine.

"Just shut up and stay back for a second!" Carmine jumped into the air and shot a spike of blood at Coro's feet. The imperial arms braced for impact, but was confused by his "aim."

"Come on! If you're going to hit it, aim, will ya!?" complained Mine.

"Damn it, shut up already!" sneered Carmine. He raised his hand to command the bloody puddle he created. "SPIN!" Suddenly, the blood splatter he made turned into a saw blade and began to spin upwards, cutting Coro's body in half. Before Coro could return fire with a punch, his paw was cut off by the blade. When the blade dissipated into a bloody puddle again, Coro regained control and attempted to devour Carmine.

"Carmine! Watch out!" yelled Mine.

Carmine simply stood where he was, watching Coro's gaping jaw come towards him. "Right where I needed you," he said, right before Coro's teeth could clamp on him. "PULVERIZE!" He crossed his arms together to create a razor sharp cross-splash of blood crystals around him, severing Coro's head to pieces and leaving him unharmed. Coro's body fell flat to the ground, leaving a cloud of dust on the battlefield.

Carmine retreated towards Mine's location and looked onwards at his handiwork. "Did I get him?" he asked. His question was answered when Coro began to regenerate again despite his head being discombobulated. Carmine's mouth dropped. "Bullshit!" he yelled. "What is this thing made of!?"

"Don't worry," said Mine. "We're starting to narrow down where the core is."

Seryu began to laugh. "A valiant effort from a criminal like you," she said. "But you should know better than to underestimate the power of an imperial arms!"

Her words were cut short when Sheele stepped out of the dust and dashed at her. "One thing about weapons," said Sheele. "They can't keep moving if the wielder is dead!" Seryu braced herself for Sheele's scissors to make contact with her tonfas, but that was all for nothing. "EXTASE!" yelled Sheele. Suddenly, a bright light emitted from the scissors and completely covered everything in the area.

Carmine and Mine shielded themselves from the bright light. "How's that thing giving off so much light?" he asked. "I can't see anything!"

"That's Extase's trump card," answered Mine. "She casts a blinding light from it, which can distract enemies."

Sheele moved in for the kill. "You've run out of time," she said. Suddenly she began stabbing for Seryu's body over and over, but her opponent barely managed to repel all of her attacks with her tonfas.

Coro looked over at the two girls trading blows and began to move towards them, when suddenly a hole formed in his body, courtesy of Pumpkin. "Hey you!" Mine taunted. "You're supposed to be fighting us! Stop getting sidetracked!" She looked over at Carmine. "We have to keep this thing busy while Sheele takes that girl out."

Carmine cracked his knuckles. "Keeping it busy is too easy. I want to slaughter this thing and then see her squirm."

"A simple "got it" would have been fine too, you know." Mine took aim at Coro. "Just do your blood thing while I try to figure out where the core is, alright?"

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Carmine began to run at Coro. "Alright, time to put this puppy to sleep!" Coro shot a punch at Carmine, but he dodged it and kept running for Coro's body. Carmine shot three blood spikes into Coro's stomach and turned them into sawblades, cutting Coro into six pieces. Almost immediately, he began to regenerate. They heard Seryu scream out in pain, but they tried to ignore it and focus on their own opponent.

Coro threw two fists at Carmine, but they were quickly disintegrated by Pumpkin. "Keep it going!" Mine said. "We have to be close!"

"I don't need your help, stay back!" sneered Carmine.

Before Coro could punch them again, he heard his master's voice reach him. "Coro, use your trump card!" yelled Seryu. "GO BERSERK!"

A second later, Coro underwent a monstrous transformation. His eyes turned red, his body became more muscular and red, and he now had two rows of huge teeth resembling a dinosaur's. He let out a horrifying roar, which made all three assassins cover their ears to avoid going deaf.

"It's got a trump card!?" said Mine.

"How are we supposed to kill that!?" yelled Carmine.

Suddenly, both of them were grabbed by Coro with two massive fists. Sheele watched as her two teammates were captured by the behemoth.

"Sheele!" yelled Mine.

"Hold on!" replied Sheele.

"Good boy!" said Seryu. "Now SQUEEZE!"

Coro began to squeeze on both Mine and Carmine. They both began to feel their bones crack under the pressure, causing them to yelp in pain. Sheele turned her attention away from Seryu and leaped into the air to slice off Coro's arms, freeing them both.

Mine and Carmine crumpled to the ground like rag dolls. "Y-you did it," said Mine.

Sheele stood back up and dusted herself off. "That was a close one," she chirped. Her celebration was cut short when a bullet shot her through the chest from behind. Mine's and Carmine's eyes drifted from Sheele falling to the ground to Seryu shooting her from a short distance away with a deranged smile on her face. They didn't have time to register the fact that Coro was dashing at her, who proceeded to tear her body in half.

Their eyes watched in horror as the top half of Sheele's body hung from Coro's jaws. "N-n-no…" said Mine weakly. "SHEELE!" Hot tears ran down her face as she glared at Seryu's smug face. She limped towards Seryu with her weapon in tow. However, she wasn't able to lift her weapon. "Damn it, my arm," she growled. All she was able to do was scream at her friend's killer.

"BITCH!" yelled Carmine in a fit of rage. He charged Seryu, though the left side of his face was covered in a bloody mask. "JUST DIE ALREADY!"

Seryu, despite no longer having arms, tried to brace herself. "You better stop unless you want to end up like your rotten friend, too!"

"Shut up!" Carmine swiped his hand down to release a blade of blood where Seryu was standing. She dodged to the left and tried to kick him away. He avoided the kick and grabbed her neck. He began to squeeze, slowly draining her blood away. "You might have killed Sheele, but you sure as hell ain't leaving here alive if I have anything to say about it!"

Seryu struggled against his grip, but he felt herself begin to go limp from his blood-draining ability. "Y-you…will never...defeat j-justice!" she squeaked.

"Tell me that again when I see you in hell!" He squeezed harder, which caused Seryu to begin to lose consciousness. Her resistance on his hand grew weak and she was beginning to lose sight of her assailant. Carmine smiled. He was ready to finish her.

Before Carmine could administer the killing blow, the assassins heard a mass of footsteps approach them. He dropped Seryu to the ground and turned to face the congregation of imperial guards that surrounded them. "Crap," he breathed. "They just keep coming!"

Before the imperial guards could swarm Mine and Carmine, a light emitted from Coro's mouth, precisely where Sheele's body was. Everyone shielded their eyes from the blinding light.

"What-" said Seryu.

"What the hell? I can't see!" said some guards.

Through the light, Mine and Carmine looked up at Sheele clutching Extase in her near-lifeless hands.

"Ex...ta...se," choked Sheele.

"Sheele, no!" cried Mine.

"That demon!" spat Seryu. "How can she possibly keep on fighting!?"

"Get out of here you two," said Sheele. "While you still have a chance. Hurry!"

Mine was barely able to keep herself together. "N-no! I can't!"

Carmine grabbed her arm and began to pull. "Get moving, will you!?" he yelled.

"Let me go, Carmine!" she yelled. She tried to break free from his grasp, but to no avail. "I'm not leaving her!"

"This ain't the time for a pissing contest! She's getting us out of here! Now move it or I'm leaving you here!"

Mine looked up at Sheele's smiling face one last time. The tears welled in her eyes as she looked at the face of her dying friend, then began to retreat with Carmine. She tried hard to ignore the sounds of Seryu commanding Coro to finish off Sheele along with the all-to-familiar sounds of flesh being torn apart and bones breaking. Carmine said nothing. He was too focused on getting out of the area with Mine while trying to keep her from going back to the battle and getting them killed.

* * *

The return to base was bittersweet. Mine explained the details to everyone in Night Raid. Carmine stood by and said nothing, per Mine's request that she would be the one to tell the others what happened. Everyone was feeling despair, grief, horror, every emotion you could feel upon learning a good friend had perished from the world.

Tatsumi, trembling, slowly walked up to Mine. "W-who did this?" He put his hands on her shoulders. "Tell me who did it, now! Mine! MINE!"

Mine refused to answer. She did nothing but hang her head in sorrow while ignoring Tatsumi's pleas. "Tell me, damn it!" yelled Tatsumi.

"Calm down, Tatsumi," snapped Najenda. "Why do you need to know?"

Tatsumi angrily turned his head towards her. "So we can get our revenge! Don't you get it!?"

Najenda was unfazed. "Not yet. Act too quickly and you'll only add to the body count."

"Then how do you expect me to act, huh!?" Tatsumi's blood was beginning to boil, which slowly began to anger a couple of the assassins. "I'm not just gonna sit on my ass-"

Tatsumi's anger-fueled remark was interrupted by a hard punch to the face by Bulat. "That's enough, Tatsumi!" he yelled. "Now pull yourself together! We warned you that any one of us can die at any time! You accepted that risk the moment you decided to join us!"

Tatsumi slowly rose to his feet. "This is crap! How are you guys all just okay-"

He was slugged again, but this time by Carmine. "Shut the hell up!" yelled the In-Birth. He grabbed Tatsumi's shirt. "You think you can just sputter all of this bullshit about revenge when you weren't there to see HOW she died or who killed Sheele!? You think you can start giving us a hard time about standing around when we want to put her killer into the ground too!?" He shoved Tatsumi back down to the ground. "Good luck! All you're going to do is join Sheele."

Orie stepped in between them. "That's enough, Carmine! Tatsumi might have been in the wrong, but this isn't necessary!"

Carmine narrowed his eyes. "Oh, that's real bold of you to talk down to me when this asshole just started shooting his mouth off about how we're not doing anything! Where do you get off acting all high and mighty?"

Orie's eyes flashed with fury. "You know what? I'm getting tired of you acting like a thug and treating everyone like an insolent jerk!"

"Calm down," said Leone. "Both of-"

"And I'm getting sick of you acting like you're Mother Teresa the whole goddamn time!" Carmine shot back. "No wonder the Licht Kreis likes a goody-goody like you!"

"You two need to stop arguing with-" began Lubbock.

"And no wonder you don't have any people that like you!" yelled Orie.

Before she had a chance to realize what she had said, Carmine's face turned into pure rage. Orie took a step back, fearing that she might have gone too far.

"This is bad," said Lubbock.

The air around everyone suddenly grew thick with EXS radiating off of Carmine. "That was a line you shouldn't have crossed!" he bellowed. He began to charge Orie, who braced herself for his attack. "DIE BITCH!"

Suddenly, both In-Births were restrained; Carmine was bound by Lubbock via Cross Tail and Orie was bound in the arms of Leone. "You two are way out of line," scolded Najenda. "Think about how this is affecting all of us, who all knew Sheele longer than you've ever been in this world. Think about how upset we are that we lost a close comrade like her. Do you really think that losing your temper or fighting each other is going to solve anything? We're assassins. We go into this job knowing that we could die at any time. If this is how you two are going to act every time a comrade dies, then you have no right to be here."

Orie and Carmine glared at each other and looked away. "M-my apologies, Boss," said Orie sheepishly. "I had no right to start a fight like that."

Carmine's eyes were trained on the ground. "Yeah, whatever."

Najenda turned to the rest of the team. "Our associate's death was by no means in vain. The empire's seen what weapons we have. They'll be attacking with more and more imperial arms! This means that our chances of obtaining imperial arms will vastly increase." She turned to Tatsumi. "Remember Tatsumi, these battles are always to the death."

She looked back over at Orie and Carmine, whom were still bound. "As for you two, you'll be sleeping in the dungeon tonight to think about your actions and if you really understand the job you're both doing. Now, you're all dismissed for tonight."

As Night Raid disbanded to grieve separately for their fallen friend, Carmine and Orie were being escorted to the dungeon by Najenda, Leone and Lubbock. Five minutes later, both were put into a large stone room, each loosely chained to opposite sides of the room.

"We'll come down to retrieve you tomorrow morning," said Najenda. "Until then, think hard about your time in Night Raid going forward. If you want our help in retrieving Demon Hunter, then I expect you both to hold up your end of the deal in helping us. If not, then neither of you might live long enough to make it home. For now, good night."

The door to the dungeon closed, leaving the two In-Births alone to atone for what had transpired that night.


	13. Kill The Absolute Justice (Part 2)

Orie and Carmine sat in the dimly-lit dungeon in silence. Neither said a word for what seemed like hours, or at least long enough to acknowledge that it was the middle of the night. They were still angry at each other, but Najenda, Leone and Lubbock were smart enough to chain their arms up enough to where they couldn't reach each other, otherwise Night Raid might had more than Sheele's death to deal with.

Orie finally decided that it was time to break the silence. She took a deep breath and faced her fellow inmate. "Carmine?" she asked.

"The hell do you want?" responded Carmine.

She was slightly taken back by the crass words, but she regained herself and attempted to continue a conversation. "I wanted to talk about that fight we had earlier."

Carmine snorted. "Yeah? You just gonna sit there and give me shit about how I was being "insensitive" or something like that? I meant every word I said to you and Tatsumi."

She sighed. "Actually, I wanted to ask you a couple of things if that would be alright."

He laid on the ground and rolled his eyes. "Yeah whatever. What do you want?"

"Well, first I wanted to apologize."

He turned his head towards her. "Apologize? To me? Heh, you're funnier than you look."

Orie grunted. "I'm trying to be serious here!" she snapped. "I wanted to say I was sorry for starting that fight earlier. But I wanted to ask you more about what I had said that set you off."

Carmine sat up and glared at her. "You're just not going to let that go, are you? What's it going to take for you to give it up and stop talking about my life?"

Despite the calloused answer, Orie never showed any signs of retaliating. What surprised Carmine more was that she looked worried when she had asked that question, similar to how a concerned parent would ask their sad child what was wrong. He looked up at the ceiling and let out a breath. "Why do you care so much about my life anyways?" he asked. "It's not like it's anything worth talking about."

"Because I want to know who you are!" That comment took Carmine by surprise, but Orie wasn't showing any sign of stopping. "I want to know something more about you other than a bloodthirsty thug who only cares about hurting people! Who are you? What do you do? What caused you to want to hurt people all the time? What can I do to not make you hate me all the time?"

The more questions she asked, the more annoyed Carmine got. "Oh my god, stop!" he cried. "Seriously, what's with all of the questions!? You're just pissing me off more with each one!"

Orie looked down. She murmured something, but Carmine couldn't hear her. "Hey, you might have blown my ears off with all of those questions you asked, but the least you could do is speak up, you know."

She looked back up at him, but Carmine noticed that she had tears in her eyes. "Please…" she begged. "Just tell me something. I want to get to know you."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, unsure of what to make of a girl begging him to tell her about his life. He took a deep breath. "Fine, just shut the goddamn water works off, will you?" She nodded and wiped the tears out of her eyes.

He looked hard into her eyes, making her aware that he was serious. "You tell anyone about what I'm going to tell you and I'll make damn sure you never speak again, got it?"

She nodded. "You have my word. Now please, I want to know."

Carmine looked away from her, trying hard to hide the pain that began to creep onto his face. "You're in for a long story, but here goes."

"I don't even remember what my real name is; I've been called Carmine for a while now. Anyways, I was the child of two people that I could barely call my parents. I could hardly call my mother "Mom" because she died when I was little. Unfortunately for me, I was able to call my father "Dad," even though I wish I didn't know the bastard. Then I had a piece-of-shit older brother named Ryuji. Yep, that's my family, though I'd be happier not knowing I had a family in the first place.

My brother was my dad's favorite. He always got the good grades, always did well in sports, blah blah blah. He was the perfect child that my family wanted; I was the mistake that just happened to survive up to this point. I couldn't ever measure up to Ryuji, not that I really cared if I did or not anyways, but my dad made sure that I knew it well. He would constantly say shit about "your brother could have done this," or "why can't you do this? This is easy!" or "You're a pathetic piece of shit." Who the hell talks to their kids like that anyways?

It started to piss me off that I couldn't just be myself and that I always had to be as good as my brother in my dad's eyes. That kind of shit really grates on you, you know? Why even care anymore if you're never going to be good enough? Well, that's what I had thought, until that night happened.

I was in middle school. One day after school, I didn't do so well on a test or homework or whatever and ended up getting an F. Of course, the teachers gotta call my dad, because apparently getting one F means you're helpless without your parents or something. I went home, expecting to get the same treatment like always, with my dad spewing bullshit about how I wasn't good enough and how my brother was better. But man was I wrong about that.

I came home, and the first thing my dad does was grab me and slam me against the wall, screaming in my face about the grade. I tried hard to explain what happened and that I would do better next time, ha ha, but my dad wasn't having any of it. He shoved me to the ground and told me to go to my room without dinner. And all the while, Ryuji's sitting there like a 5-year-old watching cartoons, enjoying every moment of my dad clobbering me.

Finally, I said that I had enough and stood up to face my dad. I told the bastard that I didn't care what he thought. I wasn't going to be as good as my brother, but screw that, I didn't want to BE my brother! I was me, and that's all I cared about, damn it! I told him to piss off before I began to walk to my room. That was about as far as I got before the old man grabbed me and shoved me against the wall twice as hard as before.

I tried to stand again, but he put a fist right into my face while yelling about how I shouldn't have talked back to him. He kept yelling garbage about how I wouldn't amount to anything and no one would care if I died tomorrow if I was going to go through life a failure like how I was doing then. He was acting like such a self-righteous prick that talking about him drives me insane.

He finished me with a punch to the gut to put me down on the ground while Ryuji dragged me into my room. My dick of a brother then told me that I might as well be another piece of trash left in the street's gutter at the rate I'm going. It's not like he wanted to help me either; all he wanted to do is watch me suffer knowing that I wasn't going to be as good as him in anything. If he had his way, he'd just send my ass to the wayside so that I didn't bug him or Dad.

Finally, the night where shit finally came to a head happened. I failed another test, fully aware of what I was in for. I tried sneaking to my room after coming home, but my dad intercepted me and threw me to the ground again. He said that he was tired of having a son who wasn't going to amount to anything, which basically means that he didn't want me around since I wasn't the perfect child in his eyes, and that he was going to get rid of me for good. I don't think I had ever seen him as angry as I had seen him that night. I was scared of what was going to happen. Ryuji looked at what was going on between Dad and I, though I think he was glad that our dad was getting rid of the family burden and he could continue being praised. Prick.

My dad grabbed a knife from the kitchen and asked Ryuji to hold me. I was kicking and screaming like wild. That son of a bitch was going to kill me over a bad grade! Ryuji wasn't letting me go though. I was standing there, completely defenseless while the person I had to refer to as my dad was getting ready to plunge a knife into me like I was a piece of meat. He said something about how he was happy that I wasn't going to be a burden to them anymore and how everyone would be better off if I was dead. I begged him to stop, but he wasn't listening. At long last, he thrusted the knife into my heart.

At least, that's what would have happened if I didn't move at the last second. The dumbass actually stabbed Ryuji, who let me go while he began to fall dead to the floor in a bloody puddle. Before my dad had a chance to realize what happened, I shot a kick into his balls, which made him drop the knife. Then I grabbed the knife and looked onwards at the man who a second ago was going to end my life. He begged me to stop while his pansy ass backed up into a corner.

But I wasn't listening. All I cared about was that I had a chance to finally kill the asshole who had been making my life a living hell. I don't think I can remember a time I've enjoyed myself as I was when I was making him cower in fear. I think he got the message that I wasn't going to stop, so he threw every insult he had at me, as if that was going to do anything for him. I don't even know what he was saying to me. All I remember was that he made one last attempt at trying to attack me. After that, all that was left was a lot of blood was coming from the part of his body his head used to be attached to when I was done.

The police ruled the killing as self-defense, but I had to begin to live alone since I didn't have any living relatives left. Since then, I've accepted my place as trash of society, but nothing gives me happiness in life more than taking down self-centered assholes and watching them beg when they realized they're no less shitty than I am."

Carmine took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. "Well, that's my story. And that's why it pisses me off whenever you try to bring up friends or family; I have NOTHING to go back to in Kanzakai." He was about to continue, but he heard crying coming from the other side of the room. He looked over to see Orie trying and failing to contain her tears from Carmine's story. His brow furrowed in annoyance. "The hell's got you crying for?" he asked.

"I'm…..I-I'm s-sorry," sobbed Orie. "I-I had no idea someone could g-go through s-s-something that horrible all of their life. It was insensitive of me to act like that. I'm really sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he answered. Carmine laid on his back and looked up at the ceiling, indifference splashed across his face. "My family sucked. My life's better with them dead anyways. I don't have to live up to any expectations and I can do whatever I damn well please. Everyone wins I guess."

"But Carmine, don't you want to have friends or people you can confide in?" Carmine raised an eyebrow at Orie. "I can't imagine that you enjoy being alone all the time."

He took a deep breath. "You get used to it. I don't depend on anyone else because I don't need anyone else to live. That's what annoys me about people who band together. When you pull them apart from each other and face them by themselves, they begin to realize that they're helpless on their own and could only survive by leaning on other like-minded morons. The reality of it doesn't hit you until you're left to fend for yourself. After all, I've lasted this long by myself, the hell's the point in stopping now?"

Orie shook her head. "If what you're saying is true, then there's still something I don't understand."

"Eh?"

She studied him very carefully. "I know the two of us were coaxed into joining Night Raid and you said it's an excuse to beat up corrupt and evil people, but when you got back tonight, you were noticeably upset about Sheele's death too. What happened that made you get riled up at Tatsumi when he wanted revenge?"

"Because I was pissed," he replied.

"Why?"

Carmine turned away from her and faced the wall. He would never show her, but tears began to form in his own eyes. "Yeah, some people in Night Raid annoy the hell out of me, but I guess this is the closest to a family I've ever had. Sheele was a total idiot sometimes, but she's one of the few people I know that gave a shit whether I lived to see tomorrow or not. It effin' sucks that she got slaughtered by that bitch from the imperial guard, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let a punk like Tatsumi go off the deep end. Even I know when to stop sometimes."

"So this is the closest to a family you've ever had," deadpanned Orie. She looked down shamefacedly. "Now I understand why you don't want to go home. I'm sorry about everything I've said. Please, forgive me."

"Let it go already," he replied. "Not like everyone knows, or gives a shit for that matter, what my life was like. But I have nothing worth going home to Kanzakai for. Here, I can beat the living hell out of corrupt assholes and low lifes and I can feel happy that I'm doing it for a reason other than just for the hell of it." He rubbed his eyes and turned back over to face Orie. "So, what's your deal then?"

"Huh?"

"What's your deal? If you're gonna make me spill my guts about my life, at least tell me a little something about yours."

"Oh, well…" Orie thought back to the darkest night of her life. "About 10 years ago, the night I became an In-Birth, my family was attacked by a Void. But it wasn't any normal kind of Void, it was one that was capable of human speech. Both of my parents were savagely devoured by that Void, but I somehow survived the attack and became an In-Birth."

"Heh, small world," chuckled Carmine. "Both of our families are dead and we nearly pushed up daisies ourselves."

Orie shook her head. "Unfortunately, it goes beyond that. I survived the attack because a member of the Licht Kreis who happened to be there that night had rescued me. I was brought to a local Licht Kreis orphanage, where they explained everything that happened to me and everything about the Night. Since then, the Licht Kreis has been my family, friends, life, everything near and dear to me. And since that fateful night 10 years ago, I had been hunting for that Void who could speak. And when I find it, I will show no mercy in making it feel the pain I felt when I saw it consume their bodies."

Carmine notice how viciously she said that last part. He let out a small smile. "You know, it's kinda hilarious," he began. "A goody-two-shoes like you and a piece of trash like me are the same in some ways."

"How so?" inquired Orie. "I don't see how we're anything alike apart from our families being deceased."

"Yeah, that's what I thought too."

Orie was confused, but decided to listen. "Alright, then please explain."

Carmine looked up at the ceiling again and smiled to himself. "Yeah, our folks are dead, but there's more shit that got dug up from this little chat. I know you try to act all prim and proper, but when someone gets under your skin enough, you're just as vicious as I am."

"I am not!" scoffed Orie. "You and I are nothing alike in that regard!"

"Tch, save it," sneered Carmine. "Yeah, I'll kick anyone's ass if they piss me off, but don't even try and hide it. Those bandits the other day got you riled up and you sliced them in half without even thinking about it! How the hell are you going to tell me that you weren't angry when that happened?"

"That...that was….just business...right?" Orie asked the question, but it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself that what she did was justified.

"Yeah sure, whatever you want to call it." He sat back up and faced her. "So, we know that our lives and each other's lives suck major ass. What now?"

"Well, what about being friends for now?"

Carmine's expression couldn't describe his irritation. "You're kidding, right? Me being friends with some moral-high-ground nutjob like you? Don't think that this talk is gonna make us best friends or whatever."

Orie sighed. "I wouldn't expect something like that from someone like you, but if we're going to survive this, then I'd like to know that I can trust you. Or at least trust that you're not going to kill me when I'm not looking."

Carmine laughed. "Some sense of humor you've got there, Orie." He noticed Orie was studying him curiously. "What now? Something on my face?"

"N-no," she answered. "I just don't think I've ever heard you use my name before."

Carmine slightly blushed and turned away. "Yeah, so what!? It's your name, isn't it?" he spat.

Orie giggled to herself. "Yes, it is. But regardless of what happens, let's try to understand that if we're going to survive, we're going to have to stop fighting all the time. So please, will you trust me, Carmine?"

Carmine smirked. "Eh, not like I have much of a choice anyways. You're still going to be the same nagging bane of my existence in the end."

"And you're still going to be the same loud, bloodthirsty child I have to babysit in the end."

The words between them sounded like insults, but there was no animosity within them. They looked at each other again and laughed, appreciating that there was some common ground they could connect with each other on. Some time later, the two In-Births went to sleep, hoping to be ready for whatever awaited them the next day.


End file.
